Home brew liquid metal

[porina]

As hinted in other threads recently, I got the stuff to try making my own liquid metal, and just done the first part.

 

These are tin pellets. I picked a couple of them as the starting point to determine the overall ratio.

 

Next is the indium. I ordered 10g off ebay, and at 9.96g on my uncalibrated scales that is close enough.

 

I don't need that much in one go, and twisting a bit off, I ended up with 0.44g. Close enough relative to the tin. While handling it, it kinda reminded me of lead. It was surprisingly stretchy though, I had to twist it a lot before it would snap this bit off. It left a dark residue on my fingers, similar to how graphite looks.

 

And this is the gallium, sold as 25g of "liquid metal bullion" on ebay. Maybe got slightly more than ordered but again close enough. When solid, this stuff is hard. 

 

As it was hard, I couldn't break a bit off like with the indium, so I put the whole lump in my hand and tried to melt it. Then I let it drip to get roughly the quantity desired. I had noticed it slightly sticking to my hands, which I don't think it was supposed to. However I didn't clean my hands from handling the indium prior to this, and that probably contaminated it. For what I'm doing, that doesn't matter.

 

And here is the gallium and indium in a plastic tube for mixing. I have not added the tin yet. This is supposed to have a melting point around 16C. The gallium was already liquid but the indium was solid. Shaking it, I could hear the indium lump rattle, and change tone as it slowly dissolved. When I could no longer hear an solid moving, I noticed the alloy seemed to "wet" the mixing container more than just gallium did earlier. I've put it in the fridge for now to cool it down and I'll have to find a way to measure the melting point, at least roughly.

 

To recap, I have 1.71g of gallium, 0.44g of indium, and 0.25g of tin for this test. For now, it only contains the first two and in theory I have about double the mass of the basic tube of conductonaut already.

[RyzenDoctor]

Cool... Let us know what the thermals look like with this home brew

[porina]

Minor update. It did go solid after leaving in the fridge for a while. I took it out and looked at it with my thermal imaging camera, as I wanted to use that to measure its temperature when it melted. Even when frozen I was getting nonsense readings. I had forgotten, shiny surface items tend to reflect heat as well as light, so I was measuring the reflection and the method couldn't be used. I gave up on that part of the experiment.

 

Phase 2 was the introduction of the two tin pellets shown earlier. I put one of them in, and was disappointed to see it float. It wasn't getting taken in. A good shake didn't seem to help. I was wondering if it perhaps had an oxide layer preventing contact? The 2nd pellet I put in some pliers and squashed it flat, significantly increasing the surface area. I dropped that in, and it did pretty much the same. I left it alone while I did some other things, and came back to find they had mixed in, although there was some surface debris in a similar shape to the pellets. I don't know if this was an oxide layer or some other impurity. Still, it had now dissolved and the mix seems to be "wetter" than before. The surfaces of the container where it is in contact is a mirror like finish. I don't know if I'm losing much to the container... after some more swirling to ensure a mix, the debris isn't obvious, but there is a kinda "skin" to the surface. If I'm going to use this, obviously I'll have to either try to clean that off, or just avoid picking it up. I do have some fine tip syringes.

 

I'm now debating what could I test it on? I do have a spare i3 system nearby. It doesn't need a delid, but might be the best test subject.

 

Oh, the gallium isn't solidifying after I handled it. The room is around 27C where it is currently placed. Pure gallium is supposed to have a melting temperature of 30C, so the possible indium contamination from my handling might be enough to push it down and it is staying liquid.

[porina]

Decided to make up a big batch as I'm tiered of seeing the bits lying around. The mix as it worked out is 71% gallium, 20.4% indium, 8.6% tin. Above pic shows mainly gallium and indium, with also the original batch. The lumps are cut up pieces of indium sitting in mostly gallium. Like the small scale, after adding the tin there, there was more of a skin on top.

 

 

Here is the stuff sucked up in a syringe. I note the mix seemed to wet the plastic tub I put it in, but didn't wet the syringe body or tip. However, the skin did seem to stick to the syringe tip.

 

Still not tested this yet. It is fun swirling the metal around in the container.