One-stop rocket fuel shop

[TunderLock]

Hi all, 

Below is an image of a one-stop rocket fuel shop. It's built on the premise that rocket fuel creation requires two temperature extremes that can be brought together to compliment each other:

1. LOX and liquid hydrogen require a lot of heat to be removed.
2. Cooking petroleum requires a lot of heat to be added. 

I've seen some great LOX machines and a genius petrol cooker by R9MX4 that I think is still one of the most elegant machines in the game. So why not bring the two together?

Inputs:

1. O2 at 60C
2. H2 at 60C
3. Oil at 90C
4. Electricity

Outputs:

1. LOX at -185C
2. H2 at -255C
3. Petrol at 250C

This machine outputs more than enough to run 3 petrol-lox rockets non-stop, without any dupe input, and could easily be scaled up. The liquid H2 is just a bonus right now that isn't even piped anywhere. There's no glitchy heat deletion methods or steam turbine hacks, we're just using the heat taken out of the O2 to create the Petrol we want anyway.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Happy to answer any questions but major points are:

• It's built in space and the vacuum is used to insulate perfectly, no need for fancy insulating materials. 
• Items in the aqua tuner room and the petrol pump should be thermium (about 2.8 tonnes total)
• The LOX and H2 cooling loops use about 500kg of super coolant each.
• The oil cooker is self regulating, pump as much oil in as you want, the petrol layer above it stops more coming in once the single oil tile hits capacity. 

Math fun and why this works:

So each liter of LOX you burn requires a liter of petroleum. The DTUs needed to be moved out of the O2 to create LOX are:

DTUs = Mass * Temp Delta * Energy Density

          = 1000g * (-155-60) * 1.005

          = -216,075

While splitting out the 1000g of Oxygen from water we'll also get another 125g of hydrogen which we want to cool down to -255. The energy to be removed is:

DTUs = 125g * (-255-60) * 2.4

          = -94,500

In total we need to put 310,575 DTUs somewhere. Conveniently, oil needs DTUs to become Petroleum. Assuming it starts at 90C and needs to hit 402.9C to transition into petrol:

DTUs = 1000g * (402.9-90) * 1.69

          = 528,801

At first glance it looks like the energy we take out of the H2 and O2 isn't enough to cook the oil to petroleum. This is where the radiant pipes through the already cooked petroleum come in. We take the rest of the energy we need out of the petroleum being created at 402.9C. At equilibrium every 1000g of oil being pre-heated will have 1000g of petroleum to receive its energy from:

Each 1000g of oil coming through the pipes has total energy of:

DTUs = 1000g * (363.15K) *1.69

          = 613,724

Each 1000g of petroleum has :

DTUs = 1000g * (676K) *1.76

          = 1,189,848

So the total 2kg of fluid will have 1,803,572 DTUs:

1,803,572 = 2000g * xK * average(1.69,1.76)

              x = 522K (or 250C)

Now with oil coming in pre-heated at 250C instead of 90C, we need a lot less energy to bring it up to transition temp for petroleum:

DTUs = 1000g * (402.9-250) * 1.69

          = 258,401

So now we only need 258,401 DTUs to cook the oil, and our H2/O2 loop is feeding us with 310,575; more than enough. What you do with the extra energy is up to you. Here I'm running more than 1000g of oil through the system since I have a couple jet-packs off screen. If there's still excess petroleum it is designed to drip off into space and delete heat that way.

I know this build might not be for everyone. I have no petroleum power plants though so its no risk to me to have my petrol production tied to my LOX production. But I'm at a point in my own gameplay where I'm enjoying the challenge of moving heat to where its needed, instead of deleting heat in one place and creating it in another. 

Hope this was enjoyable/interesting for you. Again, happy for any questions/ideas. 

[Lilalaunekuh]

First I want to say thanks for sharing and that I like the thought you put into your idea

 

The only thing that seems a bit wrong:

53 minutes ago, TunderLock said:

Cooking petroleum requires a lot of heat to be added. 

Nothing requires you to use "hot" petroleum and petroleum got a higher SHC than crude oil.

=> Cooking petroleum generates some additional heat (>4% energy is gained)

[TunderLock]

55 minutes ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

The only thing that seems a bit wrong:

Nothing requires you to use "hot" petroleum and petroleum got a higher SHC than crude oil.

You're right. Perhaps I should have tacitly stated the goal set when I play: 

The minimization of (a) dupe input (b) human input, in any process: full and complete automation.

When pursuing this, there is no other way to produce petroleum except cooking oil. 

[Cypher-7]

Fantastic writeup, I always appreciate when people take the time to share and explain builds like this.

 

Can you explain a bit more about the aquatuner room? Looks like you are pumping a liquid in but the room is empty, what are the auqatuners submerged in? 

[TunderLock]

7 hours ago, Cypher-7 said:

Fantastic writeup, I always appreciate when people take the time to share and explain builds like this.

 

Can you explain a bit more about the aquatuner room? Looks like you are pumping a liquid in but the room is empty, what are the auqatuners submerged in? 

Happy to

The room is filled with steam, about 3kg per tile. It's helped by heat transfer plates to take the heat out of the tuners and transfer it to the metal tile medium and toward the oil.

The water was only pumped in once, the water level sensor you see is unused and can be excluded.

Theres about a 15 degree drop between the aqua tuners and the oil. Not bad, you could push it faster with more conductive materials, but I'm not too worried about it. Being built in space means the heat isn't leaking anywhere, so I don't mind if it takes a while to get to the oil, 100% will get there eventually.

Each aqua tuner is preceded by a pipe thermal sensor that directs the super coolant into the tuner if the temperature is too low, otherwise it bypasses the tuner. The bridges and inline tanks allow this to happen smoothly without jams in the piping. The tanks also add a bit of thermal mass and help to smooth/average the temperatures before the thermal sensor.