Conductonaut/Liquid Metal on a silver heatsink?

[PhillipM]

Anyone know if this is safe?
I have a heatsink which I replaced the copper contact insert on the bottom with a sterling silver insert instead, I know it's a no-go on aluminium, not sure on silver?

edit: managed to find some research on it, looks like it'll dissolve a few percent of the silver before reaching equilibrium at operating temperatures, and form an interphase between the two - shouldn't really be an issue, actually might increase the conductivity....will report back!

[PhillipM]

Been on 3 days now, just pulled it off to check, the TIM has definately got thicker so either the gallium is infiltrating the silver or vice versa, but no apparent damage to the silver surface, temperatures are great, will run it another few weeks and pull it again.

[luke22]

nice 1 dude, might not be of interest to many but i was hoping you would update this thread once you had tested it

[PhillipM]

I'll keep updating
I've been slowly switching all my heatsink bases that have inserts (especially the laptops and AIO watercoolers) over to Silver plate - it's not actually that expensive to do and I'm generally seeing a good 3-4*c drop in load temperatures and more when idling on most stuff.

[PhillipM]

1 week update - some slightly surface discolouration on the silver - but doesn't scratch off or feel otherwise brittle in any way, so I think it's just the gallium forming an interface layer. All good, temperatures still great.