Thoughts on rust deoxidizer power generation

[TLW]

Tl;DR: not worth it unless you have something better than steel.

The rust deoxidizer is a heat multiplier. Its outputs have a higher total heat capacity than its outputs.

Most people try to run the rust deoxidizer right at its cold threshold (75C).

However, the steam turbine converts heat to power. I was wondering if you could use the rust deoxidizer for power by trying to create heat. Use a countercurrent heat exchanger between the inputs and outputs to get out O2 at about the same temperature as the input rust & salt, and get power out of the bargain too.

All told the rust deoxidizer produces ~1130DTUs/sec, plus ~80.1DTUs/K/sec. At 225C, this is ~41kDTU/s... which in a steam turbine gets converted into ~41W. And the rust deoxidizer consumes 60W.

(The other alternative here would be to run the deoxidizer cold, and run an aquatuner / steam turbine combo... however this is also marginal in terms of power production.)

...assuming I did the math correctly and didn't miss anything. Note I'm neglecting the steam turbine heat output here, which may not be a good idea.

[Steve Raptor]

isn't rust limited to what you get on the map?

[Nebbie]

Thermium rust deoxydizers to produce power sounds like the most pointless abuse of game mechanics I've ever heard of.

2 hours ago, Steve Raptor said:

isn't rust limited to what you get on the map?

In absolutely ludicrous quantities, and you can also get it from the oxidized planetoid in space.

[Loscil2]

Wish I could melt away the rust easily in a machine, preferably in the metal refinery but noooo... I gotta make some sort of contraption, regolith melter like, to actually use all this rust. And by the time I do that I already have tons upon tons of iron already.

[TLW]

3 hours ago, Steve Raptor said:

isn't rust limited to what you get on the map?

Yep... but since rust is only useful for converting to Cl + iron + O2, you may as well get as much bang for your buck as possible.

1 hour ago, Nebbie said:

Thermium rust deoxydizers to produce power sounds like the most pointless abuse of game mechanics I've ever heard of.

Agreed. I may end up doing it anyway just for the amusement value.

[Lilalaunekuh]

11 hours ago, TLW said:

Its outputs have a higher total heat capacity than its outputs.

Seems a bit wrong ^^

But I really like the overall idea

 

[TLW]

19 hours ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

Seems a bit wrong ^^

Yeah... but really that's so far down the list that it's barely a footnote.

I mean... you can take water, split it into hydrogen and oxygen, burn the hydrogen (and only the hydrogen!) into nothingness for more power than it cost to split the water (!), and cool down the oxygen using the hydrogen input into the hydrogen generator.