Silver dye for water

[mDust]

I've been looking on and off for a while now for silver colored water dye. I'm trying to produce a mercury-like effect. As of now, I'm not even sure such a dye exists, but if anyone has seen anything like that let me know.

Gray won't work...it just looks like scummy swamp water. So please don't be the 100th person to tell me to use gray. lol

Thanks in advance.:)

[billygoat333]

dont they make silver flake that you can mix with water?

[crenn]

The only thing that pops into my mind is heavy and not really practical.

[mDust]

dont they make silver flake that you can mix with water?
Does it stay suspended pretty much forever? I won't be able to stir it up very easily once it's set up.

The only thing that pops into my mind is heavy and not really practical. Does it begin with an 'm' and end with an 'ercury'? hehe Otherwise, all ideas besides 'use gray dye' are appreciated.

[crenn]

Does it begin with an 'm' and end with an 'ercury'? hehe Otherwise, all ideas besides 'use gray dye' are appreciated.
http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/thermo/liquid_metal/liquid_metal.html

[mDust]

http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/thermo/liquid_metal/liquid_metal.html

That's really cool...but prohibitively expensive. I'd need about a gallon. Sooooo $15,000? I might get one to play with though!:D

[crenn]

As I said, it was heavy and not really practical ;P

[Kayin]

I saw some liquid gallium cooling setups on Ebay once. That would work.

[mDust]

Well, I calculated out the bare minimum volume I'd need to be 108 cubic inches. The cheapest gallium I could find would cost about $2800 for that amount...and that's the absolute bare minimum. Plus it isn't liquid at room temperature, so that is definitely a problem as well. I found a gallium-indium-tin compound called galinstan which is liquid down to -4 F/-20 C. But I cannot find anyone that sells it. I'll bet it costs even more than pure gallium just because it isn't mass produced by anyone.
Has anyone come across any similar substances by chance? lol, or silver water dyes?

[mDust]

Well, I just found a couple sources of galinstan...and I don't have the bare minimum of $14,400. Some simple silver water dye would be more appropriate no matter how how perfect a true liquid metal would be.:(

[billygoat333]

I'll talk to my brother, he is a chemist. he should know what to do.

[artoodeeto]

I can't find anything on a silver water dye. only thing I can think of that'll give you a silvery metal look without actually being metal would be to thin out some model master chrome silver paint to an almost water-like consistency. However, I don't know what the cooling properties are, and my guess is it wouldn't work all that well. the other issue I can think of is when the system is off, the paint pigment will want to settle out from the thinner, which wouldn't be a good thing.
Although....if you aren't going to bend the tubes too much, you *could* pour the paint through the tubes, allowing it to coat the inside, then once it's dry put your water or other coolant in there. Again, I have no idea if that would work well in practice - if the paint ever flaked off that could cause problems in the water blocks, rad, and/or pump.

[Kayin]

There is Tygon Silver tubing, and it kills microorganisms too.

[Spawn-Inc]

There is Tygon Silver tubing, and it kills microorganisms too.
exactly.

http://www.tygon.com/uploadedImages/SGtygon/Images/Silver_crop.gif


outside of painting the OUTSIDE of tubing there is no other practical choice.

use coloured tubing. it won't be shiny like mercury, but it's as close as you will get.

and don't use any metal flake in your loop either, it will clog up blocks and may even damage the pump.

[mDust]

there is no other practical choice.

Of this I'm sure...but I'm openly considering impractical choices as well.

The effect I'm aiming to achieve requires the liquid to be silver in color. Colored tubing won't work, but I'll keep that tubing in mind for future reference.

Maybe I'll get lucky and someone will find a big ol' bubble of 99.99% pure gallium in the ground and the price will drop to $10.00/kg by next week!:D
Or maybe I'll be much less lucky and win the lottery every day for the rest of my life...