Electrolyzer setups

[Ixenzo]

TL;DR: Disable/don't use the Piped output mod if you want the partially flooded electrolyzer to work permanently.

 

I've been looking for 100% uptime electrolyzer setups and the design I've seen the most is the partially flooded electrolyzer with auto separation. The problem I find with it is that sometimes the liquid gets deleted for some reason. I suspected that it would happen upon oxygen pressure reaching a certain amount dependent on the liquid amount, but in sandbox the design worked with painted 1000kg oxygen per tile against 100 kg per tile liquid, whereas allowing natural oxygen collection from vacuum with the same amount of the same liquid eventually broke the machine somewhere around 600 kg/tile. Probably some calculation error/feature gets triggered at certain conditions or something, but whatever. It seems that I have to implement separate infinite gas storage and continuously pump oxygen and hydrogen from the electrolyzer room into it, wasting power.

So, any cheeky build and forget designs or do I have to take the power hit?

[nakomaru]

This problem also confounded me for a while. Two things that seem to prevent it in my experience: place your oxygen on the top layer and hydrogen on the bottom. Also, place a solid tile above the top left square of the electrolyzer.

[Ixenzo]

1 hour ago, nakomaru said:

This problem also confounded me for a while. Two things that seem to prevent it in my experience: place your oxygen on the top layer and hydrogen on the bottom. Also, place a solid tile above the top left square of the electrolyzer.

Exactly the design I was using, eventually it breaks.

By the way, I remember reading that chambers needed to be primed with respective gases for auto separation to occur without hitches, but the design  with a tile above the top-left of the electrolyzer seems to work out of the box from vacuum, sending the oxygen up top. First time I built it I had the chambers primed and with different infrastructure, but in practice it turned out exactly the opposite, requiring a messy fix.

[nakomaru]

I realized you can be like this person and reroute the top right gas to the bottom. Just in case, make sure you're not doing this:

It should be that the oxygen is on the top right and the hydrogen is on the left of the output cell. If you're doing that already I'm mostly out of guesses. This mechanic is somewhat picky. You could try a different liquid mass or element.

[DRAKCORE]

20 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

I realized you can be like this person and reroute the top right gas to the bottom. Just in case, make sure you're not doing this:

It should be that the oxygen is on the top right and the hydrogen is on the left of the output cell. If you're doing that already I'm mostly out of guesses. This mechanic is somewhat picky. You could try a different liquid mass or element.

Could just put several doors above/below or even both on a sequence and create a vacuum to suck out both oxygen and hydrogen into a chamber where they naturally separate, where you can have pumps at the bottom and top of that said chamber. Could purely have electrolyzers above some air flow tiles in a row and have the doors below and above pulling the contents into a room where you can compress forever.

[DRAKCORE]

A concept or variant like this. Just design it around to not delete hydrogen or oxygen.

Or if you got excess power production, why not just use pumps that pump into another chamber with some liquid over the vent.

Actually thinking about it the image above this, just using gas valves as free filters you can power your generators and colony with, while any excess overflow would be funneled into small chambers with additional pumps for future usage.

This would be the most efficient within margin of power usage but definitely in dimensions.

When I get home tonight I will make something and post it here.

 

[nivodeus]

I've been using a compact electrolyzer setup for a long time now. I saw it from youtube and then tweak it according to my need and it seems to work fine. It's not 100% but I need to ask why is it that you want a 100% uptime?

Is it more due to the production, as in hydrogen/oxygen value or are you mainly looking for a design that self-sustaining, as in power itself out?

If the later was the case, then I could post my current setup once I have access to my game (mind you it's only 1 electrolyzer but I dont see why it can't be tweaked for more than one.)

Aside from initial charge of the smart battery, I've never run out of oxygen, so long as I have enough water supply. As you can see, after a while I started having excess of energy (not the second hydrogen gen just to burn the excess H2) , that currently this setup is helping running my Tuber that bring Dupes all the way to the surface. This is also after supplying the 2 AETN (my map has 3 AETN atm) far away and still I have excess in my storage (note the gas 2 gas storages there).

The oxygen was supplied to 10 atmo suit and the excess goes to first colony and then storage. 

The H2 gen was running 50% of the time (battery charging at 50% and I have backup Hamster wheel from the original energy injection set at 5 % in the case of something, but it's never been used as far as I know).

The entire room can be even more compact but I found having some extra room down for the oxygen to flow actually help increasing uptime, and probaly with this setup you can also add 1 more gas pump for the O2, but I dont need that much O2 atm and it's working fine. 

Atmo sensor for H2 pump was at above 300 and O2 was at above 100 (there is really no guidance for it, it's just that it works with this setup)

There is definitely room for improvement and even more efficiency but as of now, this sustain itself. Hopefully can get you some ideas and maybe found a more efficient one. Unless again you want one that are able to auto separate the gasses. 

[Ixenzo]

Ran an experiment: four flooded electrolyzers of the same design outputting in the same room, but with different amount of liquid: 250 , 200, 150, 100 kg/tile of pwater and water. The 100 kg/tile one broke at ~80 kg/tile hydrogen and ~1250 kg/tile oxygen. It had both tiles of the lighter liquid (water) deleted.

Spoiler

 

The 150 kg/tile one gave out at 118/2033 kg/tile H2/O2 pressure, again, the upper liquid deleted completely.

Spoiler

 

The 200 kg/tile gave up at 191/2827.

Spoiler

 

Finally, the 250 kg/tile broke at 266/3771.

Spoiler

I also noticed that the graphic of the top-right water tile is visibly indicating the pressure difference: see the leftmost electrolyzer in the first three pictures - the water is being pushed more and more down and to the sides.

I've noticed that the fubar occurs at approximately the same time of the cycle. This is 0.1 past an integer number of cycles after the electrolyzer was built, e.g. the final one lived for 30.1 cycles. The 0.1 could be explained by the little delays where I forgot to replenish water supply. Is the overall lifespan of an electrolyzer influenced by the amount of space in the gas room is it just strictly gas pressure versus liquid mass?

I'm suspecting that there could be some relationship between the total molar masses (element molar mass multiplied by the amount of the element) of interacting tiles. The ratio seems to fluctuate between 6% and 9%, e.g. if I take total molar mass of a tile of oxygen as 100%, it can be successfully resisted by 6-9% of as much molar mass of water. This is a wild guess and all, but curious. It needs testing with other liquid, particularly crude oil and petroleum.

Partially flooding a building is also inconsistent or there's some black magic going on. Dropping pwater into the electrolyzer pit from a bottle emptier height can result in a flood at 250 kg/tile, but sometimes it doesn't and I could stack like 800 kg/tile in there without problems until a second layer of tiles formed and proced a flood. Crude oil could flood the electrolyzer at 50 kg/tile if dropped straight down, but if it falls from a lip it can take up to the tile density limit of the liquid as long as there is no second layer.

Spoiler

 

Magic.

[KittenIsAGeek]

On 11/17/2019 at 9:01 AM, Ixenzo said:

Exactly the design I was using, eventually it breaks.

If your oxygen or hydrogen pressure goes above the volume of liquid you used to "trick" your electrolyzers, it can displace the liquid and cause funny things to happen.

[Ixenzo]

35 minutes ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

If your oxygen or hydrogen pressure goes above the volume of liquid you used to "trick" your electrolyzers, it can displace the liquid and cause funny things to happen.

So it does, though the ratio at which it happens isn't straightforward. Basically, how much gas pressure can a certain liquid of certain mass handle before getting deleted, and at what conditions the deletion occurs.

I routinely have NG infinite storage hold >1000 kg/tile of gas against <2g of crude oil atop a vent. You would think the gas would delete the liquid or at least continuously press it into the underlying full tile of oil so that the vent wouldn't be partially flooded, but the interaction of gas and liquid tiles here is different from the electrolyzer example.

[KittenIsAGeek]

1 hour ago, Ixenzo said:

So it does, though the ratio at which it happens isn't straightforward. Basically, how much gas pressure can a certain liquid of certain mass handle before getting deleted, and at what conditions the deletion occurs.

It isn't deleting, really.  There are two squares of each liquid over the electrolyzer.  The gas pushes the liquid into one of the squares and the electrolyzer suddenly sees that its over pressure and stops operating.  Another method of failure is the gas pushing both liquids and breaking the seal between the gasses, letting them intermix AND cause over-pressure.

1 hour ago, Ixenzo said:

I routinely have NG infinite storage hold >1000 kg/tile of gas against <2g of crude oil atop a vent.

I do this as well, though I'm usually at 30 to 60g of liquid.  When air leaves the vent, it pushes the small amount of liquid into the full tile beneath it, allowing the gas to escape.  The liquid doesn't get deleted, it just gets pushed out of the way.

That said, there ARE circumstances where the liquid gets deleted.  These are situations where there is nowhere for the liquid to go.  If it must be pushed out of the way because of its mass, but there are solids or high-density gas (or even other liquids) around it, then the liquid will get deleted.

[Ixenzo]

1 hour ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

It isn't deleting, really

Well, it does definitely delete it. It's gone, all 100-150-200-250 kg/tile, both tiles simultaneously. Once the gas pressure reaches a certain point, boom. Only the lower liquid remains without any change. Deletion seems to be the last resort action, where there is nowhere for an element to go. Kinda like destroying gases and liquids by diagonally building tiles.

I have seen an electrolyzer get flooded after having the lower liquid get pushed into one tile, but it only ever happened once during the autosave where I paused and yanked the mouse off screen. I haven't been able to reproduce it during normal gameplay.

1 hour ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

When air leaves the vent, it pushes the small amount of liquid into the full tile beneath it, allowing the gas to escape.  The liquid doesn't get deleted, it just gets pushed out of the way

Since there are two tiles of the same liquid, they can be compressed and then relieved without deletion, allowing flooded vents to work. But you must have two different liquids to partially flood an electrolyzer, so that doesn't work.

Guess I do have to pump the chambers out into a separate infinite storage. Well, electricity isn't an issue, but the perfectionist will be miffed.

[nakomaru]

Those are really high liquid masses compared to what I use.

10kg supercoolant / 118T oxygen / cycle 21000+ stable

I have yet to see any quantity of gas displace any quantity of liquid, except from below where the liquid is falling, and discounting generation in the same tile.

Try the build pictured here.

[celest-kn]

How do u get O2 at the top cause in my builds, I start from a complete vacuum , H2 goes top and O2 bottom, and it sometimes breaks( the H2 usually gets contaminated by O2 every 100 cycles or so) . I'm thinking the O2 at the top might prevent the contamination. Could you explain your build process? Thanks @nakomaru

[nakomaru]

@celest-kn After you have a vacuum, just pump in some oxygen to the top and hydrogen to the bottom.

To obtain 10kg liquid tiles, deconstruct pipes filled with liquid from above.

Yes, with this build with the oxygen and hydrogen swapped, I would often see liquid deletion and contamination.

 

[Enzium]

Why don't you go for a simpler setup? It's self powering.

Just make sure you leave a 1 tile gap above the electrolyzers. For some reason it wont be self powered if you dont.

 

 

[nakomaru]

Since it was asked, some reasons why I don't use baby's first electrolyzer designs:

• Less than 100% uptime on electrolyzers.
• Destroys precious hydrogen.
• Requires filtering.
• Requires separate storage for gasses.
• Runs pumps at less than 500g packets.

[DRAKCORE]

Here is a simple example based of my 14 block wide rooms and two stories (X4 blocks per level x2 + 1 block between floors).

This can easily supply oxygen to my 28 dupes.

X1 pump which can easily handle the 448g of hydrogen from the X4 electrolyzers.

X7 pumps for the 3552g of oxygen (52g off).

Basic checks with a 'and gate' and two 'gas element detectors' for the hydrogen and free gas filters for both.

From there you decide to direct to generators and vents throughout your base, and excess pump into chambers with additional pumps for a latter use.

[Supraluminal]

12 hours ago, nakomaru said:

Since it was asked, some reasons why I don't use baby's first electrolyzer designs:

• Less than 100% uptime on electrolyzers.
• Destroys precious hydrogen.
• Requires filtering.
• Requires separate storage for gasses.
• Runs pumps at less than 500g packets.

I have more questions:

• Why is 100% uptime important if you can just build slightly more electrolyzers to meet your targets?
• How/why is hydrogen destroyed? What circumstances cause it and how do the more advanced layouts prevent it?
• Why do you want to avoid filtering, bearing in mind that this can be done with little to no power requirement?
• Why do you want to avoid storing gas in a separate area?
• Pumps sucking less than 500g/s can be mitigated or eliminated with very simple automation, or am I missing something here?

I know that part of the appeal of ONI is designing the most elegant, compact, and efficient systems possible just for its own sake, even when more basic systems would be perfectly functional. Is that the main motivation here, or are there significant mechanical benefits to the more advanced electrolyzer systems?

To be clear, I think "because it's a fun challenge/because I felt like it" is a perfectly fine reason to do something, this isn't intended as an argument against the more complex designs. I'm honestly just curious about what mechanical advantages there are, if any.

[SVV]

1 hour ago, Supraluminal said:

I have more questions:

• Why is 100% uptime important if you can just build slightly more electrolyzers to meet your targets?
• How/why is hydrogen destroyed? What circumstances cause it and how do the more advanced layouts prevent it?
• Why do you want to avoid filtering, bearing in mind that this can be done with little to no power requirement?
• Why do you want to avoid storing gas in a separate area?
• Pumps sucking less than 500g/s can be mitigated or eliminated with very simple automation, or am I missing something here?

About hydrogen deletion:
Hydrogen "Deletion" and how to abuse it
Electrolyzer and Pump layouts

My answer to other questions: "I hate pipes spaghetti(mechanicals filters) and I like efficiency and simplicity".

[Angpaur]

2 minutes ago, SVV said:

About hydrogen deletion:
Hydrogen "Deletion" and how to abuse it
Electrolyzer and Pump layouts

This is outdated info as that issue was fixed. Something else is causing the deletion problem, but I don't recall anyone pointing to exactly what is the root cause. Maybe someone now will explain who knows.

[DRAKCORE]

Here is an example I use for my bases.

Oxygen is pumped throughout the base to the dupes, hydrogen gens will power the entire oxygen system as well as the base if there is enough hydrogen detected in the pipes heading towards the gens. Excess hydrogen is stored and can be used for other purposes.

If you had the blueprint mod, I have added the oxygen production.blueprint for you to DL.

[nakomaru]

5 hours ago, Supraluminal said:

• Why is 100% uptime important if you can just build slightly more electrolyzers to meet your targets?
• How/why is hydrogen destroyed? What circumstances cause it and how do the more advanced layouts prevent it?
• Why do you want to avoid filtering, bearing in mind that this can be done with little to no power requirement?
• Why do you want to avoid storing gas in a separate area?
• Pumps sucking less than 500g/s can be mitigated or eliminated with very simple automation, or am I missing something here?

If you are happy with less than 100% uptime that is fine. Of course, it's good enough for most people.

Hydrogen is destroyed by its consumption in your hydrogen generator.

Filtering and storing gas in a separate area requires you to pump twice once you use storage. Instead, with what I believe is the simpler design, you just have the 100% uptime electrolyzer directly output to high pressure oxygen/hydrogen storage rooms. You can even mix in rust deoxidizers in the same room, with a partition between hydrogen and chlorine on the bottom.

I assumed you are not always getting 500g per packet 100% of the time with high uptime electrolyzers, e.g. in Drak's numbers. Well, it's been a very long time since I've tried.

Here's essentially the 100% uptime version of Drak's 4x setup.

[Ixenzo]

On 11/19/2019 at 12:59 AM, nakomaru said:

 

 

Spoiler

 

I have yet to see any quantity of gas displace any quantity of liquid, except from below where the liquid is falling, and discounting generation in the same tile.

Try the build pictured here.

Only the rightmost one was hooked up, 100 kg/tile water and pwater, as I didn't have access to other liquids at the time. So does it have to do with the type of liquid? The amount of liquid is also a suspect I suppose.

Well, time to experiment again.

[nakomaru]

Bummer. Try 5k or 10kg per tile on top. You can do this easily by deconstructing pipes. Naphtha will be different due to the high overflow mass, but most other liquids should perform the same at these masses.