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Is liquid helium electrically conductive? How about liquid nitrogen?

I'm pretty sure helium is not eletrically conductive since it's a noble gas, dunno about in liquid form. As for liq. nitrogen I've got no idea.
 
How much does this stuff cost?

You could keep a PC-sized amount liquid for at least a day if you had a well insulated box.

Seb
 
One benefit over mineral oil is you don't have to worrya bout cleaning it off. Just leave it standing and it'll all evaporate in no time.

Seb
 
they don't have a free electron in thier outter atomic rings... so, no, they are not conductive.
 
That's what I meant M00T....although Nitrogen does, doesn't it?

BTW, what do you call an inert or noble gas when it's in liquid form?
 
they are not electrically conductive. Noble gases in liquid form are very hard too keep in liquid form especially when you have a damn hot computer in the middle of it. You would have to cool the liquid to the same degree the computer and ambient temperature of the room is warming it, or else it would evaporate. this is not easy.

edited out something that i think might be bs.
 


<< edited out something that i think might be bs. >>



At least you admit it! I can tell a lot of people just write stuff to sound knowledgable when they have no idea or backing.

Seb
 
yeah, i was remembering back to a-level chemistry, when someone told me that pure water was not electrically conductive, but i cannot remember if i am thinking bs again. So i cut it out.

what is worse, as a second year chemistry msc, i really ought to know :Q

i was thinking along the lines of answering the question, because it is something to do with ionic solutes but i cannot be bothered to check up.

Anyway, liq N and He are not conductive, but when they are doped with an imputity they might be. (thinking dust and flecks from your case here)

later 🙂

 
someone please post if you know the answer(+a reason)

I am thinking it might not be because of the complete valence shell of the central O, but then i might be on drugs thinking that.

anyway, i am not asking my lecturers because i will look stupid for not knowing. :Q
 
Thom, you are right, distilled water - AKA &quot;pure&quot; water is not electrically conductive.
 
A capacitance probe permanently positioned within the storage tank itself in used to measure the quantity of liquid remaining in the tank. This capacitance reading is converted to a gage reading. A good 75 liter tank might lose 2 or 3 liters a day due to evaporation.

<< Anyway, liq N and He are not conductive, but when they are doped with an imputity they might be. (thinking dust and flecks from your case here)>>

You can't allow impurities in the tank, at least, not in the sense you're considering. Contaminating the tank would require overhauling the system. $5000 easy. Assuming that you didn't blow it up. The solid contaminants or even water which forms ice would cause the control valves to malfunction -- possibly not allow the flow of the liquid/gas out of the tank or allowing the pressures to be relieved.

The materials that the tank is constructed from (SAE 304L stainless steel)and it's design must take into consideration the extreme changes it material properties at cryogenic temperatures. Most materials, such as a silicon chip would be destroyed by the thermal stresses caused by submerging it in liquid nitrogen, even it you could find a way to do this gradually and evenly.

 
deionized (pure) water is not electrically conductive because there are no ions present for the current to flow to.
From: General Chemistry, Fith Edition, Ebbing 1996

Thom, you should be able to figure this one out, because if you dissolve NaCl into the pure water it becomes conductive, because the resulting ionic solution is really Na+, Cl-, and H2O. I'll let it slide this time because I had to look it up too 🙂, and I'm taking P-chem now.


I'm pretty sure both of these coolants are too cold to allow your computer to operate. Hydrogen in liquid is -260C and Nitrogen is -210C.
 
i think you'll have better luck having a real vacuum in your computer and watching your components explode.
 
Actually there was some guy that designed a chamber to keep the processor in liquid N2, and he got it to work (the link wandered around these forums a few months ago...). The main problem with it is always condensation.
 
Too bad they couldn't get the LN2 to work....maybe if they would've used less, and added it while the computer was running it wouldn't have fscked up so badly.


The whole idea of submersing my computer in liquid anything scares me though.
 
What they could have tried was to put the tubing above the L N2 and keep the compartment closed. This would cool a lot less (no gel formation) - might not be able to OC the processor so high but at least for longer. The liquid N2 would last a lot longer too!
 
Immersion completely in liquid nitrogen is indeed rare, although it has been done, at least the university of newcastle has a 386 running at around 200mhz in liq N2. (sorry, no link, but i got told about it a while back)

as to the conductivity of water, i was also considering the
H20 --> H+ + -OH
<--

equilibrium which might have led to some ionic contribution.

Anyway, nice thread, and frankly i prefer the idea of silica gel and a freezer. 🙂


 
Pure water is a poor electrical conductor.

A pH of 7.0 implies a concentration of H+ (and also of OH-) of 100 nM.

The conductivity of pure water at room temperature is about 55 nS/cm.
 
nanoMoles per what?

nM/dm3 yeah? sounds about right. however, a really low doping with something ionic (eg NaCl) quickly lends the solution conductive potential, so in fact knowing that water is theoretically a insulator is probably quite useless 🙂

nice numbers though

S = Siemens yes?
not a physicist, am a chemist.


 
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