Nano Fluids

[Omega15362]

Ok so with the release of the Zalman Resonator 3, there has been this thing in my head. The previously mentioned cooler boasts heavily about its use of nano-fluids, and so I read some bits and pieces regarding them. All in all they seems to be pretty good for thermal conductivity. Since this is something I am sure someone on here will know about I pose the question to you. Has anybody ever used Nano-Fluids in a build and what can you tell me about them if you have, is there a noticeable difference between them and water?

I see some are oil based and some are water based, this could potentially be great for builders IF they could bring down temps and be more safe to use around your high performance build?

 

Lastly since some (or all??) Nano-Fluids are magnetic, does anybody know how magnetic? Would this be an issue or not? I had this discussion not long ago about keyboards with magnets and stuff, but our generous forum host, assured me that such small magnetic fields would not cause any harm to my drives, is this still true for these fluids?

 

 

After wring this entire thing, I have come across this. Makes for some interesting reading, should anyone be interested. http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ame/2010/519659/

Note the date on this, its not exactly a recent publishing.

[WoodenMarker]

Hard drives have one of the most powerful earth magnets inside of them. They are perfectly fine.

[Ghost]

Fun fact: Most of mayhems coolants are nano fluids.

 

Nano fluid is just a cool name they decided to use and push out there for marketing purposes. It's really nothing special.

 

Realizing the modest thermal conductivity enhancement in conventional nanofluids, a team of researchers at Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research Centre, Kalpakkam claimed developing a new class of magnetically polarizable nanofluids where the thermal conductivity enhancement up to 300% of basefluids is demonstrated. Fatty-acid-capped magnetite nanoparticles of different sizes (3-10 nm) have been synthesized. It has been shown that both the thermal and rheological properties of such magnetic nanofluids are tunable by varying the magnetic field strength and orientation with respect to the direction of heat flow. Further, it has been shown that such response stimuli fluids are reversibly switchable and have applications in miniature devices such as micro- and nano-electromechanical systems.  Source: Wikipedia

 

As you have no magnetic field in a PC; the improvement is well, modest...

 

I'd also like to point out that the nano particles don't have to be magnetic, they just have to be "nano"

 

Nanofluid is a fluid containing nanometer-sized particles, called nanoparticles. These fluids are engineered colloidal suspensions of nanoparticles in a base fluid.^[1] The nanoparticles used in nanofluids are typically made of metals, oxides, carbides, or carbon nanotubes. Common base fluids include water, ethylene glycol^[2] and oil. Source: Wikipedia

[Guest GRRigger]

distilled water + good thermal paste, i dont think you need much more

[Omega15362]

That is quite disappointing, I was getting my hopes up that there might be some decent temp differences to be seen.

[JujuShinobi]

distilled water + good thermal paste, i dont think you need much more

There was a post somewhere in the forum stating that distiller water performs more or less the same as premixed coolant. Plus it's cheaper

[MetEishYa]

Well it all depends on the particles used in the nano-fluid and concentration of them. Lots of research is been done on this at the moment which can benefit every thing from cars to power stations. As for temps even a 25% increase in thermal conductivity (modest increase) can result in 10 degrees reduction in temperature or less surface area been use. They are no just some marketing ploy as Ghost suggests there is large sums of money been put into this type of research, give this tech a fewer years and the results can be very nice.

[R4STABAN]

marketing name mate.

 

Mayhems pastel is an example of a nano fluid.

 

Pastel performs slightly worse than X1 (traditional style coolant) at low load temps but slightly better at high load temps.