Plasticizer

Disclaimer:

All the information below is based on user’s feedback in overclock.net and many not be accurate at all. I will not be responsible on any outcome that is caused by this compilation as it ONLY acts as researched information I have gathered from various sources online. The suggested tubing that is plasticizer free may end up plasticizering your watercooling loop and I will not be responsible on that outcome.

As for today “company A” might be producing the best tubing with no problems, but as we all know most of the tubing is made by batches by mixing certain ingredients. Tomorrow the ingredients might change causing the tubing quality to drop & giving you problems. So please be aware of the date this information is published as every product that is made has its own batch on when it was made.

Also please be aware that we suspect the main cause of plasticizer is the tubing plastic leaching caused loop temperature but we can’t/ haven’t prove this yet. The suspected cause of this problem could be totally wrong. There is also some evidence suggesting killcoil speeds up tubing clouding and there is also another claim being made by another user saying biocide speeds up the tubing clouding. As mention previously, all this could be the possible cause but its not 100% confirmed.

I will leave the information here for you guys to make your own decision and also to educate what is “plasticizer” all about. I have no intention to promote any brand of tubing or company. My advice is to get a tubing that won’t plasticizer so that you can use it with dyes/coolant and your system will still look good. In the end of the day watercooling is mostly about the sexy aesthetic looks of it and this will also save your time in maintenance since you don’t need to keep replacing your tubing every month for it to look good. Do take note that there is cheap tubings available out there, you can also buy that and replace it every month if that is a cheaper option for you. The choice is yours, whatever floats your boat.

Solid tubing (copper) or acrylic tubing will not have such problems, so if you don’t want to come across any plasticizer issues, you might want to choose that path.

1) What is all this fuss about plasticizer with all these watercooling tubing these days?

Plasticizers (UK = plasticisers) or dispersants are additives that increase the plasticity or fluidity of a material. Phthalate-based plasticizers are used in situations where good resistance to water and oils is required. Some common phthalate plasticizers are. Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), used in construction materials and medical devices

2) What is DEHP?

First off the EU has been pushing to ban "DEHP" (since 2011) in medical equipment for the last few years and finally manufacturers are now taking up the proposals. The ban if it goes through will be enforced within the next few years so if manufactures don't move over they could find them facing some severe penalties if and only if the proposals go through.

DEHP is highly lipophilic (fat soluble). When used in PVC plastic, DEHP is loosely chemically bonded to the plastic and readily leaches into blood or other lipid-containing solutions in contact with the plastic. In water cooling terms "DEHP" is what has been causing Gumming up of water cooling blocks for years and people have been wrongly blaming the coolants because of this. When "DEHP" reaches temps of around 38c and above the leaching process is exasperated in our findings and this is when problems start to occur. Also the uses of some biocides also do not help and cause the "DEHP" to leach at a faster rate.

Some sources of information for you:

DEHP - the penis shrinking chemical ->http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles...a-does-not.aspx

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bis(2-ethylhexyl)_phthalate

DEHP Information centre - http://www.dehp-facts.com/RA

3) Why should you buy high quality tubing then?

There are many forms of tubing out there and "DEHP" is in a lot of them. Tubing that is "DEHP Free" is not a cheap as tubing that contains "DEHP".  However would you rather spend a few pounds, euros or dollars more on something that is going to help keep your system clean and gum free? The choice is yours.

4) What nonsense, I been using cheap tubing since day 1 & had no such issues or complains whatsoever?

The reason why some people do not have issue and some do is all down to the temperature of the liquid inside your system. The hotter your water is the more apparent the problem becomes. E,g If running a 2 x 120mm rad on a system that has a GPU and CPU block then the risk of "DEHP" leaching is higher than is running the same system on a 3 x 120mm rad with the same fan speeds and though put.

Do take note of your room ambient temperature too as it can affect your loop temperature. Running a watercooling system in an air-con room will cause the liquid in your system to have a lower temperature compare to running without air-con. Malaysia ambient temperature during a hot sunny day can reach up to 34’C or even higher!

“We have been doing some testing on plasticizer build up for a while trying to develop something that helps reduce the rate at which it leaches with some success. You cannot stop it entirely however you can slow it down.

What we have found is that is you liquids are around the PH of 8.5 to 9 Plasticizer seems to leach very quickly into the system. Now un treated Di water / Ultra Pure water is around at this level were as at 6.5 to 8 which is the middle of the road its slows down the process.

one thing the remember the thinner the tubing the less plasticizer is there and the less the effect will happen. The thicker the tubing the more of it is present and the more chance it will happen. (not trying to teach ppl to such eggs).”

5) Okay, I understand but how do I know my tubing is having plasticizer issue or not?

That is simple, does your tubing looks cloudy than before? Drain your loop and let the tubing to dry. Remove 1 of your tubing & cut it in half. If you can see white powder stuff then that is a sign of plasticizer. You will be able to easily remove that stuff with your fingers or nails, just scrub it out.

Please take note that plasticizer is a whole different issue than corrosion & algae, they are NOT the same! People sometimes mistaken with tubing yellowing with plasticizer, please take note that tubing yellowing is a norm for “all” tubings and it happens after a long period of time whereas plasticizer can happen overnight if your loop temps are too high!

Plasticizer = white nasty powder that coats your tubing & your loop

Corrosion = chemical reaction with two different metals damaging your components

Algae = green nasty stuff, basically micro-organasim living in your loop. Use biocide to prevent this.

Tubing yellowing = common issue overtime, a possible reason is because tubing absorbs water & light.

Distilled water turning green = something is wrong, when you flush your radiator with vinegar, the liquid will turn to greenish colour.

“The green corrosion is called patina, it is basically tarnish that occurs on the surface of copper/bronze and similar materials when the metal is exposed to various chemicals or acids and in turn oxidation takes place.”

Cut your tubing in half:

    

Scrub it out & it should look something like this:

6) Okay, so what? It just clouds the tubing right so in the end of the day my system will look ugly right? That’s all?

Well sadly no. It does not only clouds the tubing, overtime it can accumulate & gunk certain parts of your system as well, your radiator, reservoir and even worst your waterblocks. While it doesn’t necessarily affect your loop temperature, it will affect your flowrate. Just imagine this, your waterblock acts as a filter with many tiny channels, when plasticizer issue becomes serious, it will start accumulating in your waterblock. With sufficient gunk accumulate at your waterblock, this can clog your waterblock channels and cause drop in flowrate. As martin posted his findings, running your loop less than 1GPM can affect your loop cooling capabilities.

Take note though, here we are talking about serious plasticizer issue that been leaching for quite sometime. The usual plasticizer lining issue that user encounter are usually very thin therefore chances of it gunking up your waterblocks or radiator is very slim. The common issue you will see is it will affect your tubing only with some whitish film in the inner surface of your tubing.

Although biocide has no direct impact to plasticizer issues according to mayhems but he mention that killcoil helps tubing to cloud faster. He confirms this by himself and badomen who is primochill liquid tester. We have yet to see prove & tests regarding this issue, hopefully someone can post some testing regarding this issue because there are a lot of claims by end user that they been running their loop with killcoil since day1 in distilled water & had no such problems or whatsoever. According to mayhems, the culprit for this is most probably because the silver ions somehow gets sucked into the tubing speeding up the clouding process but they are not 100% sure about this. Its something they noticed while conducting tests.

It’s a common misconception that dye causes gunk in your loop. This is not true according to mayhems regarding his dyes. Dye’s stains your stuff alright, that’s for sure and this can also stain that white stuff produced by plasticizer. When this accumulates in the waterblock, it looks like sediments from the dye but it’s not. It makes more sense that the dye have actually stained the “nasty white stuff” and it ended up in the waterblock thus users thinking the problem lies within the dye themselves.

Gunk clogging your waterblock = reduces flowrate:

White nasty stuff suspending in the coolant:

It even ends up in your fittings:

Effects of plasticizer to your loop

Before:

After:

Using mayhems pastel will not solve your problem, as the problem lies within the tubing itself & not the coolant.

Before:

After:

Notice how the coolant colour didn’t change much? This is because the inner part of the tubing is already coated with white nasty stuff but haven’t spread yet to the reservoir, running it for a long period of time might spread to the reservoir but can be easily cleaned.

8) So you made it sound like DEHP tubing is bad & Non-DEHP is the way to go. Any other advantages & disadvantages that I should know of?

Other than Non-DEHP tubing is costly, the other disadvantage of this type of tubing is their flexibility. Most of the Non-DEHP tubing that we came across doesn’t bend as well as other tubings. So this means if you have a tight loop in your system, it will be a challenge for you to get the bend without kinking the tubing. Having kinks in your tubing is something you should avoid at all cost! This is another whole issue, maybe we will talking about this next time but in order to solve this problem if you insist on use the tubing, it is to get angle rotary depending on the bend radius you need.

Of course getting rotary will then cost you extra when you already spent a lot on quality tubing but I guess this is how the world have always been huh? There is always a give & take. Using DEHP tubing will be cheap, some of them are so cheap that you can replace it every time it starts to turn cloudy. This is another factor that you might want to consider. You will need to go through all that hassle to drain your loop, remove, cut new tubings etc but it might cost you less than getting expensive tubing.

7) Testing

By mayhems

The full details on the testing is available in the link provided below, I will just summarize the results that we have currently without going in depth on the various test conditions. I would strongly advise you to check out the link as there is interesting findings & results.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1272759/testing-tubing

Tygon R3603

Primochill Primoflex PRO LRT:

Note: Avoid getting this tubing, go for the newer revision version instead which is renamed as primoflex advance LRT. This is due to the fact that the earlier batch in 2012 had no problems but the newer batch started showing signs of plasticizers from so many users. We are glad primochill saw the problem and took some action on it and came with the newer revision, hopefully this batch will be taken out of the shelf.

No further updates from mayhems as these results will be affecting companies from more progress than doing any good:

“We have had to take the information private due to the controversy surrounding this subject. The information we have gathered from our testing will be passed onto the people who need to know. We would rather not create a fuss over something like this in a public form. Sorry”.

It’s understandable because if you look at the other point of view, these tubing’s are produced by batches. Today’s ingredients could be different from tomorrows, let’s say company A decided to stop using DEHP in their tubing today. This could solve the plasticizer issue for their tubing but because of the test data published by mayhems, everyone might have avoided buying their tubing. In the end we wouldn’t know if the company did solved their issue or improved it since nobody wants to buy it anymore. Although mayhems stopped publishing test results, he did advise us to get either these 3 tubing as of 16 march 2013. Primochill Primoflex Advance LRT, Durelene or Tygon plasticizer free (Tygon E-1000).

I also personally asked him how does Clear flex 60, XSPC premium, thermochill & Masterkleer performs as I could only find this type of tubing in my country (Malaysia) and this is the reply I got:

“Clear Flex is cheap and does the trick. However it does cloud quickly and does release plasticizer over time. However it’s "cheap". Hence you have no issue replacing yearly.

Thermochill / XSPC (they are both the same company) .. i had there tubing go crazy on me (lots of plastersizer).

Masterklear have six different types of tubing. I gave trying to figure out which ones which with them. Some works some doest trying to know which is the best is a head ace.”

“We haven't tested the new primochill however we are testing the tygon E1000 and Durelene. Both have passed our testing with flying colors however there is still the issue of yellowing over time. This seems to be the norm with "all" tubing though.

Durelene is stiffer tubing and E1000 is much softer.

As for testing we've taken all our results privet and passed the info onto relevant companies. The reason for this is so that they can fix there issues instead of users just jumping ship and us causing a mass panic. This would be unfair on all manufacturers. I feel we as a company need to act in this responsible manner.”

“UPDATE : PrimoChill PrimoFlex Advanced LRT Working, Tygon E1000 Working. "DEHP" free tubing is recommended for use with Mayhems pastel coolants.”

That’s all the information that I could find from mayhems, so let’s carry on with testing done by other users.

Feedback from Martin

You guys have more experience with tubing than I have, but I can share the tubing I've used and give you a quick 2c clouding report:

Tygon 3603 - Have had clouding problems, particularly when used with dyes/glycols. Like the durometer, but hated the clouding, typically wanted to replace it after 3 months of use.

Duralene (Saint Gobain) from SWC - Not quite as flexible as the Tygon 3603, but good enough, very low cost and I've run this in water systems for very long periods of time without any clouding issues. This stuff get's my vote for best bang for the buck tubing that doesn't cloud much.

Feser Tube UV colored - I've used blue and green in this in the larger 1/2" x 3/4" size also for extended periods of time in water/PT nuke systems for 2 years without any problems at all. The smaller thinner stuff didn't have clouding issues, but it did get rather stiff compared to the larger size stuff that remained good even after years of use. Only issue I've had is the dye from one tube can transfer onto other tubes when it's very fresh, but it's good stuff...really like it other than the cost.

Home Depot PVC - Total crap, clouds up almost instantly and way too stiff to use, it can get you by in a pinch when you are out of tubing, but this stuff is not at all fun to use.

XSPC UV colored tube - I've used a little bit of this and also didn't have any clouding problems, but it was a bit stiff in durometer for my liking.

That's all I've used and while I have had clouding issues, I've never seen anything to the extent in these threads where a solid white film has formed. Mine has always been more of a translucent clouding issue and seem to be associated with using coolants other than distilled water/PTnuke type solutions. I'm no chemist, but there's all sorts of possibilities between the tubing and many of the coolants out there considering the number of chemicals present and mixed. Never tried Primochill tubing although I've heard good things about it's flexibility.

Hope that helps..

Martin

Feedback from WW

Just a thought. As an engineer who has worked in the plastics business I can tell you that most plastic tubing contains plasticizer of varing amounts and properties depending on the desired end use. There are several plastics on the market which don't use plasticizers but I don't know how suitable they would be for water cooling. One of these, which is made in a food grade is called PEBAX. It is already used in toothbrushes and other applications needing flexibility. It might be worth seeing if it is extruded into tubing.

Plasticizers is nothing special...it's just a solvent that makes the polymer more flexible and easy to process. What may be happening is the materials may be of lower quality causing the plasticizer to volatilize prematurely leaving the hose less flexible and more prone to cracking. UV radiation will also degrade polymers by attacking the chemical bonds which provide stiffness.

While not universally true I have noticed some products sourced from mainland China are not of the same quality as those produced elsewhere. Quality control tends to be spotty in Chinese industry with lower grade materials sometimes being substituted.

WW

Tests & findings done by skyn3t

Hello Guys here is my Feedback to "Plasticizer Problems / Discussion / Gallery". After a lot reading, pictures and seeing how people are suffering about Plasticizer and Cloud white film inside the tubing, I have put together all my stuff that I have in hands for you guys.

Tygon R-3603 Before any water in the loop day 1, Tygon R-3603 its very clear tubing but compared with Durelene Tygon is kind off yellowish color:

Tygon R-3603 after 4 Months in the loop with Distilled Water + kill coil + Mayhems Red Dye. About 3 weeks ago I had drained my loop, changed the Distilled Water + kill coil + Mayhems Red Dye and with Pure Distilled Water. As you can see the white film inside the tubing is pure bad:

At the top - Tygon R-3603 New Tubing added on 6/13/2012. At the bottom - Tygon R-3603 after 4 months with Distilled water and Mayhems Red Dye:

Koolance Res Crystal Clear since Day 1. Still looks clear and shiny even after the clouded tubing with Distilled water + kill coil + Mayhems Red Dye after 4 months nothing found in my blocks, rad and res:

Durelene PVC tubing 7/16in. ID 5/8in. OD by Saint-Gobain First bath with Distilled warm water to clean the dust inside and ready to receive the final run. Compared with Tygon R-3603 the flexibility is not that much in real world.In my first experience with Durelene was very good, even its natural clear color is very bright compared with Tygon R-3603, Tygon R 3603 and it is kind of yellowish color.

It does looks sharp:

Here is the package i received today in the mail a Big Box with 27" of Durelene Clear tubing I already had cut all the tubing for my RiG i do have less tubing inside this box. It does look very clear no yellowish like Tygon R-3603:

Here is the comparison chart tubing. Tubing in order

1 - Durelene

2 - Tygon R-3603 ( Virgin )

3 - Tygon R-3603 after 4 months with Distilled water + kill coil + Mayhems Red Dye

Mayhems Red Dye - won't crystalize inside the Loop once is mixed it won't separate from water

I had a half gallon distilled water with Mayhems Red Dye seal for 4 months sit in the same shelf collection dust. The color never faded no residues in the bottom found. Half gallon was cut in half to make sure it was clear and no cloud stuff inside i had no kill coil inside the gallon and it was Red rich clean distilled water.

Black Hawk Down Running New Clear Durelene Tubing Distilled water + kill coil:

By tomorrow 6/15/2012 i will have 3 container One with Tap Water, Pure Distilled Water and Contaminated water distilled water from my old loop with tree peace's of tubing inside on each container + kill coil. I like to see how long they can cloud and film. each day in the morning i will going to shake each container I'm going to leave it by my window this way it can warm a bit in simulation of warm water in the loop. i just need to find 3 peace of nickel plate to drop inside of each container.

1- container Tap water - Contaminated Tygon tubing , clean Tygon Tubing and Clean Durelene Tubing

2 - container Distilled Water - clean Tygon Tubing and Clean Durelene Tubing + kill coil + Mayhems Red Dye

3 - container Distilled Water - clean Tygon Tubing and Clean Durelene Tubing + kill coil only.

Plasticizer Problems Update.

As you guys know I'm running Durelene PVC tubing 7/16in. ID 5/8in. OD by Saint-Gobain + Distilled Water + Silver Kill Coilfor 3 weeks and 6 days ( 27 Days ) and it looks the same since Day One. not signs of Plasticize or Cloud including the Reservoir i have been running my 3570K 4.5Mhz and my GTX 670 FTW @ 1200MHz  24/7. Heat is not the issue as far as i know in my recent test's. I know i had doe some Plasticizer testing with Tygon R-3603 and Durelene in Glass Container but some how all those test when very different in what I have now both my System are running Durelene Tubing the Plasticizer Test Bench had MayHems Red Dye and still the same no Plasticizer or Cloud whatsoever. I'm very happy with my result test's.

Just to you guys know this time i have a more high quality photos compared with my last result so the pictures is much more clear look and don't pay attention in some light reflection in tubes it make it looks Blue o even a Bit Cloud But it's NOT. When water inside the tubing and some bends it's Magnify the letter's, you guys know what I'm talk about.

Here is the tubing since ???? and before removed and cleaned with cotton rag and a wood stick with soap.

Left tubing Durelene with plasticizer raze inside

Right New Durelene tubing

New tubing - Used tubing after had been cleaned with cotton rag and wood stick , Used tubing with Plasticizer/haze

Durelene with Distilled water. Left to right

New tubing

New Used tubing after cleaned with cotton rag and a wood stick with soap.

Used tubing with Plasticizer/haze

same order, but how those tubing looks better ?

but here you can see it better but i changed the order left to right

Used tubing with Plasticizer/haze

New tubing

New Used tubing after cleaned with cotton rag and a wood stick with soap.

Over here you can see the plasticizer/haze much better but when its wet you almost cannot see it only if you put a new or a cleaned tubing side by side. Now is time to know how long Durelene toke to get like this. My tubing was changed on 7/31/12 Post #1154 http://www.overclock.net/t/1199158/plasticizer-problems-discussion-gallery/1150#post_17827918

running Distilled Water with Mayhems Pastel Ice White.

PS : keep in mind my rig was running Distilled water with Mayhems Pastel Ice White, Durelene has prove the durability. even running under premix and die, the plasticizer/haze is not noticeable whem the tubing is wet. like I said above only side by side with new tubing.

Now is BHD wil only run Distilled water with Mayhems Biocide. for the next final test in very heave load.

Thanks for all you guys support and let's keep this thread clean objective with this problems

Tests done by systemlord

I received my 2 foot long Primochill Advanced LRT Tubing (clear) today, I will leave a piece under the hot tap water all night plus soak another piece is distilled water indefinitely. I'll report by end of day today, let the abuse begin.

Updated

Here are pictures of my Primochill's new Advanced LRT, the piece on the left was put in a coffie cup while under HOT tap water for 12 hours, can you tell which of the two clear pieces spent 12 hours in distilled water? I think it's safe to say that this new tubing is more resilient than any tubing before it if my memory serves correct, 12 hours under scalding hot tap water!

Something unexpected has happened, I just looked at the piece of tubing I put through hell has for some reason lost a bit of the clouding it had earlier today! Could it be because the tubing absorbed the hot water and is now dryer now? I'm sold on this tubing, buying red as soon as possible!

Conclusion

So I went through the whole thread and came to a conclusion and I have also summarized most of the useful info. There are few info that I decided to leave out due to the insufficient details of testing done or some evidence suggesting the user is the only 1 who is not suffering from plasticizer whereas almost all the others are reporting otherwise.

·        Thread started with primoflex lrt pro having serious plasticizer issue, leaching right after 3days of use. Turning the tubing to cheesy white colour. Plasticizer issue/tubing clouding was a common problem back then with all the other tubings but it happens overtime after few months of usage.

·        A lot of feedback from other users reporting the same problem, primochill denies the problem lies within their tubing.

·        Users started looking for alternative tubing brands that wouldn’t cloud the tubing, some users including martin suggested durelene.

·        Few other brands were introduced, masterkleer, clearflex, xspc & tygon but there were feedback from other users that they used it in the past & it clouds as well. No proper tests/evidence was provided though.

·        More users gave good feedback on durelene as they used it in the past & it is cheap, skyn3t started doing tests on it.

·        Its found that durelene will have a slight haze/cloud in its tubing while it’s in the loop but once removed and dried the difference can be seen compared to new. When it’s wet, the cloud is hard to see and many other users started using durelene tubing. Received many good feedback with slight hazing to the tubing but its not a deal breaker considering the price is cheap.

·        Primochill is still working on the problem, they introduced sys scrubber which is some kind of chemical to add in your loop to remove the plasticizer from the tubing. Some says it worked & some said the plasticizer lining is too thick therefore it did not work properly.

·        Tygon E-1000 was recommended as it’s the only “plasticizer free” tubing available but the price for it is too expensive.

·        Primochill primoflex advance lrt was introduced in November which was made specifically for watercooling users and were told it have addressed all the issue the previous tubing had. Some primoflex pro lrt users where sent the new tubing as a replacement.

·        Many users started using it & reported only good things about it, so far I haven’t heard any bad feedback about it regarding plasticizer issues.