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Comment by chiph | Hacker News Reader

Article doesn't even mention the Cray-2 that used Flourinert for cooling.

Flourinert turned out to be really bad for the environment, so I wonder if the article was meant to be how they have a new cooling fluid that is safer?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorinert

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Ah, Fluorinert. I remember first seeing that on Beyond 2000, where they demonstrated its properties by immersing a running Macintosh into an aquarium tank full of the stuff.

The predecessor to today's NUCs and small-form-factor PCs was the Ergo Brick, which was available in 386 and 486 models in the early 90s. Inside the Brick was a bag of Fluorinert, pressed to the mainboard, to facilitate cooling of the components within its constrained space.

Also a cool demo of oxygenated fluorinert allowing mice to live in liquid. It may be a tech required for stasis during space travel.

This was used as a plot point in The Abyss (1989). The rats in that movie were actually breathing Fluorinert, but they used special effects for the human actors.

The Abyss also may have inspired the use of LCL as a breathing fluid in Evangelion.

Mineral oil is a relatively niche but long-standing gaming enthusiast solution, too. Again, you still need a fan-cooled radiator…

https://www.pugetsystems.com/mineral-oil-pc/?srsltid=AfmBOop...

They are using Submer's SmartCoolant: https://submer.com/smart-coolant-liquid/. In short, this appears to be a test of an existing commercially-available product.

Non-toxic and biodegradable, but still requiring full PPE for use and with strict environment containment guidelines...

Those two don't fit each other.

But anyway, looks like it's an oil so all the complaints about it being hard to use will be there.

I’m guessing it has to do with concentration. Like d-Limonene is a fantastic, natural, biodegradable degreaser… but you need PPE to work with it in any prolonged way.

You shouldn't interest it, and it will degrade... Still plenty other potential ways it can be bad for you...

Could cause skin irritation.. be highly acidic/basic, could react with skin oil or moisture... Or could be lawyer required CYA just in case.

and a massive pain when you wanted to repair something! From what I was told by an old tech was you had to drain the affected area do the replacement, fill up, power on and do a test.

If you forgot something, or it didn't work, rinse and repeat.

The article you linked gives plenty of other options.

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