From Reddit:
"This can be explained through the principles of cohesion and adhesion. Water has strong cohesion to itself and strong adhesion to the sponge. Mercury has strong cohesion to itself but weak adhesion to the sponge.

Cohesion arises from attraction between something and itself. Cohesion is strong in water due to the large amount of hydrogen bonding between water molecules, causing water to stick to itself. Cohesion is strong in liquid mercury due to something called metallic bonding between metal cations and delocalized electrons in the liquid metallic liquid, causing the mercury to stick to itself.

Adhesion arises from attraction between something and something else. Since water molecules are polar, they can hydrogen bond with the polyurethane sponge. Mercury's metallic bonding, however, does not interact with the non-metallic sponge. Mercury will, however, adsorb to other metals such as gold or silver and form an amalgam.

Basic mercury clean up kits usually contain metal sulfides, which can react with the metal, disrupting metallic bonding, and permitting other forms of intermolecular forces to facilitate clean up."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_mirror_telescopes

Check that crap out, ferrofluid mirror potential! What I wonder is are the optical properties of liquid metal any good. For instance, they are using gold in the James Webb telescope because it reflects nearly all infrared light. What would the optical quality of these metals be? Sometime tells me polished glass structures would be both higher resolution and use materials that are optimized to reflect the spectrum you are interested in. The Wiki seems to indicate the real advantage isn't in the optical quality, but the relative inexpensive in creation. Much like paying a hooker for 5 years of polishing your nob, polishing a mirror is costly.

Liquid Metal: Mercury (Hg) in Slow Motion has been added as a related post - related requested by oritteropo on that post.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

My point still holds that to hold any descent amount of energy that they are producing when no one is using power requires a HUGE number of these things. This tech isn't really new, they have been using it for years, this is just a new formulation, tech has been around since the 60s. The problem is the same problem now as then, chemical energy density just isn't that great. If you are trying to use it as some type of regulator, fine then, but that isn't what he is talking about. He is talking about storing up volumes of energy that wind and solar make when people don't want it, then inject that to the grid when it needs it. You need this because renewables are unpredictable. To store any real volume of energy worth caring about, you need 10s of thousands of these. For comparison, a single 1gigawatt power station (a pretty standard size in the industry of power generation) generates enough energy for hundreds of thousands of people, even in the shade.
I'm not trying to be a negative nancy, I like advances as much as the next guy, I just don't like all this investment in renewables over real grid solutions. The energy density of wind and solar makes them impractical solutions for primary load generation, but that is all we hear about in today's energy topics. It is like talking about saving pennies when your trillion in debt. It bugs me, so perhaps I am harping to much on this
>> ^curiousity:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I don't think this is even close to grid level storage, at all. For instance, in Austin this year, between 4 and 5 p.m we consumed 66,867 megawatts. For those who are counting, that is over 33k of these things. Lets talk about storing them. Each container would be 40x8x8 feet; or 2,560 cubic feet. Lets just say we need 1 hours worthish of power, so 33k of them. That is 84 million cubic feet! For reference, the Empire State building is 37 million cubic feet. So for one hour of power here in Austin, we would need about 3 Empire state buildings of liquid metal batteries, unless my math is wrong (someone check me!) If my math is right, this isn't even close to a grid level storage ability. Your going to need density on the order of 1000 better to even be reasonably sized at 84k cubic feet (about the size of a large factory, or concert hall).
The only reason to try and investigate battery grid backup is to address the issue of wind and solar being so energy inefficient, and volatile. It is a better solution to just have them generate secondary power and let new fission based technologies take hold; best of both worlds. Then again, I have a personal bias

I thought that he had clearly made the point that this investigation into grid battery technology was for the purpose of making those intermittent renewable resources reliable to the point that they could more easily attach to the grid. You are arguing that this isn't suitable for a purpose that he isn't designing it for.



Ahh... well thank you for clearing up what he really meant beyond what he said. I guess I only had to go off of what he said.

My point still holds that to hold any descent amount of energy that they are producing when no one is using power requires a HUGE number of these things. This tech isn't really new, they have been using it for years, this is just a new formulation, tech has been around since the 60s. The problem is the same problem now as then, chemical energy density just isn't that great. If you are trying to use it as some type of regulator, fine then, but that isn't what he is talking about. He is talking about storing up volumes of energy that wind and solar make when people don't want it, then inject that to the grid when it needs it. You need this because renewables are unpredictable. To store any real volume of energy worth caring about, you need 10s of thousands of these. For comparison, a single 1gigawatt power station (a pretty standard size in the industry of power generation) generates enough energy for hundreds of thousands of people, even in the shade.

I'm not trying to be a negative nancy, I like advances as much as the next guy, I just don't like all this investment in renewables over real grid solutions. The energy density of wind and solar makes them impractical solutions for primary load generation, but that is all we hear about in today's energy topics. It is like talking about saving pennies when your trillion in debt. It bugs me, so perhaps I am harping to much on this
>> ^curiousity:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I don't think this is even close to grid level storage, at all. For instance, in Austin this year, between 4 and 5 p.m we consumed 66,867 megawatts. For those who are counting, that is over 33k of these things. Lets talk about storing them. Each container would be 40x8x8 feet; or 2,560 cubic feet. Lets just say we need 1 hours worthish of power, so 33k of them. That is 84 million cubic feet! For reference, the Empire State building is 37 million cubic feet. So for one hour of power here in Austin, we would need about 3 Empire state buildings of liquid metal batteries, unless my math is wrong (someone check me!) If my math is right, this isn't even close to a grid level storage ability. Your going to need density on the order of 1000 better to even be reasonably sized at 84k cubic feet (about the size of a large factory, or concert hall).
The only reason to try and investigate battery grid backup is to address the issue of wind and solar being so energy inefficient, and volatile. It is a better solution to just have them generate secondary power and let new fission based technologies take hold; best of both worlds. Then again, I have a personal bias

I thought that he had clearly made the point that this investigation into grid battery technology was for the purpose of making those intermittent renewable resources reliable to the point that they could more easily attach to the grid. You are arguing that this isn't suitable for a purpose that he isn't designing it for.

Yeah i think they go between the intermittent source and the grid and stabilize the flow. Like a big slow motion capacitor.

>> ^curiousity:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I don't think this is even close to grid level storage, at all. For instance, in Austin this year, between 4 and 5 p.m we consumed 66,867 megawatts. For those who are counting, that is over 33k of these things. Lets talk about storing them. Each container would be 40x8x8 feet; or 2,560 cubic feet. Lets just say we need 1 hours worthish of power, so 33k of them. That is 84 million cubic feet! For reference, the Empire State building is 37 million cubic feet. So for one hour of power here in Austin, we would need about 3 Empire state buildings of liquid metal batteries, unless my math is wrong (someone check me!) If my math is right, this isn't even close to a grid level storage ability. Your going to need density on the order of 1000 better to even be reasonably sized at 84k cubic feet (about the size of a large factory, or concert hall).
The only reason to try and investigate battery grid backup is to address the issue of wind and solar being so energy inefficient, and volatile. It is a better solution to just have them generate secondary power and let new fission based technologies take hold; best of both worlds. Then again, I have a personal bias

I thought that he had clearly made the point that this investigation into grid battery technology was for the purpose of making those intermittent renewable resources reliable to the point that they could more easily attach to the grid. You are arguing that this isn't suitable for a purpose that he isn't designing it for.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

I don't think this is even close to grid level storage, at all. For instance, in Austin this year, between 4 and 5 p.m we consumed 66,867 megawatts. For those who are counting, that is over 33k of these things. Lets talk about storing them. Each container would be 40x8x8 feet; or 2,560 cubic feet. Lets just say we need 1 hours worthish of power, so 33k of them. That is 84 million cubic feet! For reference, the Empire State building is 37 million cubic feet. So for one hour of power here in Austin, we would need about 3 Empire state buildings of liquid metal batteries, unless my math is wrong (someone check me!) If my math is right, this isn't even close to a grid level storage ability. Your going to need density on the order of 1000 better to even be reasonably sized at 84k cubic feet (about the size of a large factory, or concert hall).
The only reason to try and investigate battery grid backup is to address the issue of wind and solar being so energy inefficient, and volatile. It is a better solution to just have them generate secondary power and let new fission based technologies take hold; best of both worlds. Then again, I have a personal bias


I thought that he had clearly made the point that this investigation into grid battery technology was for the purpose of making those intermittent renewable resources reliable to the point that they could more easily attach to the grid. You are arguing that this isn't suitable for a purpose that he isn't designing it for.

I don't think this is even close to grid level storage, at all. For instance, in Austin this year, between 4 and 5 p.m we consumed 66,867 megawatts. For those who are counting, that is over 33k of these things. Lets talk about storing them. Each container would be 40x8x8 feet; or 2,560 cubic feet. Lets just say we need 1 hours worthish of power, so 33k of them. That is 84 million cubic feet! For reference, the Empire State building is 37 million cubic feet. So for one hour of power here in Austin, we would need about 3 Empire state buildings of liquid metal batteries, unless my math is wrong (someone check me!) If my math is right, this isn't even close to a grid level storage ability. Your going to need density on the order of 1000 better to even be reasonably sized at 84k cubic feet (about the size of a large factory, or concert hall).

The only reason to try and investigate battery grid backup is to address the issue of wind and solar being so energy inefficient, and volatile. It is a better solution to just have them generate secondary power and let new fission based technologies take hold; best of both worlds. Then again, I have a personal bias

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I wish I could say The Matrix series, because I had my mind blown by the first Matrix. It was one of the most perfect surprise movie moments - I had some time to kill so I decided to check it out - I knew nothing about it. I thought it was going to be just a typical conspiracy thriller or something. So when he started to turn to liquid metal and woke up in the pod - I was cheering internally.

But the rest in the series were shit. So I vote Star Wars.

This is very cool -- it must be the metal with the next-lowest melting temperature after mercury.

.....aaaaaand a bit of research reveals that Ga melts at 29.8°C, and there are three other "liquid metals" as well: francium (27°C), caesium (28°C), and rubidium (39°C).  Gallium is the only one that is considered non-toxic.

There are also non-toxic metal alloys that are liquid at room temperature, such as gallium-indium-tin, which melts at -20°C.

Close your mouth, this is not a Jonas Brothers backstage affair..
>> ^Crake:
^


Upvote in spite of the horrible *music

>> ^dannym3141:
Indeed to all the nay sayers.. my dad's a physics teacher and 20 years (or whatever) ago they used to handle mercury and let the kids play with it in a little tray. In fact when they took the floorboards out of one of the chemistry labs, it had a pool of mercury under the floorboards about an inch thick from all the spillages and broken thermometers etc.


Shoulda jumped in and waded around!

>> ^Edeot:
What a dumbass.


But that was cool, so who cares.

Looks like a dupe:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Liquid-Metallic

@ Fuses aren't the problem its the explosive degrading over time that is the problem. As all explosives degrade including HE it becomes more unstable over time. There is no way you could manufacture 5000 bomblets per cluster bomb and not have some fail. If there's to sensitive and the cloud explodes before it hits the ground. Plus the economy of scale means the fuse's need to be cheap to manufacture or you might as well just make 1000 pounders or rockets. The biggest problem with cluster bombs happens years later when some kids play in that field were the battle was and find a little cylinder and play with it. That's why there being banned. Even if there coloured orange and the explosive sign was plastered all over them i guarantee you kids will play with them.

@ NordlichReiter Retroactive doesn't mean what you think it means. You mean Reactive armor. Reactive armor uses an explosive to push the explosive charge away from the the tank. Things like EFP and HEAT rounds that us liquid metal to cause the majority of damage can't penetrate because of the force being thrown back at the enemy explosive. The problem is they are panels. And once a panel is used up it has to be replaced. It would be hard to hit the same target twice in the same spot but the panels are large enough that it is definitely possible using shoulder fired rockets and missiles at close range within a city.


This entire show is nice but honestly every time i see it, it screams marketing by company's and less about what will actual see action. Not to mention the guy needs to calm down seriously you don't need epic music and epic narration every time. If its being researched and tested now it might see action in 5 years. Plus only a very small fraction will actually be bought by the DoD.