CO2 Condenser Cooling System

[Eadra]

Don't get me wrong, the hydrogen bubbler is amazing. The amount of control you have is impressive and the temperature range you can get to is great. However, you don't always need a cooling system that technical and it's a bit resource intensive if your goal isn't to condense O2. In my world I just wanted to reduce the temperature of geysers to a more comfortable range and prevent geyser heat from negatively effecting my base. I initially used Hydrogen cooled by wheezeworts in a radiator fashion to cool the geysers. It did well initially, but once the pump was active and feeding into showers the temperatures went back upward slowly. Hydrogen alone wasn't enough to keep up. I ended up coming up with this Hydrogen/Co2 cooling system, which I call the CO2 Condenser Cooler.

Since a constant cold hydrogen radiator wasn't enough I had the thought to spike the water temperature down by adding a different cold liquid or solid. CO2 fit that purpose well. It takes a long time to cool the CO2 enough to fall into the hot geyser water, but when it does it's a nice color show. And cools the geyser down effectively.

With temperature switches in place it will stop before you freeze the water and start again when the geyser's heat becomes a threat again. On occasion the top of the water level does freeze when a very large chunk of Co2 solidifies, but it continues to cool the water below until that ice melts and I have not seen any problems after running it for hundreds of cycles.

The system is very flexible and I think can be built to any size. The only things you need to ensure you have is a room you can grow wheezeworts in, and add hydrogen gas to, as well as recycle the gas in. The geyser set up should have solid tiles above the geyser and an area to store CO2 gas above the rest of the water tank. You will need to make gas pipes from the pump, coiled behind your CO2 storage and then over a bit of the geyser area, then finally back into the hydrogen room.

The coil behind the geyser is important for the turning on phase of automation. It takes a long time to bring the CO2 temperatures down enough for it to condense and until it condenses gasses can only slow the increase in water temperatures, so slow it we must!

I hope everyone enjoys the idea, and thanks for reading!

 

[Lifegrow]

Isn't this something that everyone experiences when they use cooled hydrogen? It's a clean system don't get me wrong, but you're not pumping in any more CO2, just using whats in the room, right? Isn't that what happens every time somebody builds a system like this - just from dupe breath alone?

Here's mine - I didn't intend to make it a "CO2 Condenser Cooler" - it just happened by accident I guess

The pipes in the tank are cooling the water being piped in from the geyser above, but as a by product are cooling the CO2 into both liquid and solid versions. I found that the "cooling spikes" you mentioned were actually caused by liquid CO2, not the solid kind. When the water level is low, I get a small amount of ice, but as the body of water gets larger it evens out into a nice 12-16 degrees.

I don't want you to think i'm downplaying your build, but this isn't a new discovery for you to name - it's been done by many people before us  

P.s. ignore the cooling to the left - that's my hatch feeder

 

[Slight]

I'm about to build a cooling system for a geyser and want to get this straight.

You're saying putting a radiator in the water using cooled hydrogen was not enough to completely cool the water before it got sucked up by the pump and used by the colony yes?

You're then asserting that placing the radiator above the water to cool the gas (CO2) is for some reason more efficient than cooling the water directly? You're calling it a condenser but is the CO2 actually condensing into a liquid? If yes than I see why you used CO2, if no, why are you using CO2 instead of hydrogen?

[Lifegrow]

2 hours ago, Slight said:

I'm about to build a cooling system for a geyser and want to get this straight.

You're saying putting a radiator in the water using cooled hydrogen was not enough to completely cool the water before it got sucked up by the pump and used by the colony yes?

You're then asserting that placing the radiator above the water to cool the gas (CO2) is for some reason more efficient than cooling the water directly? You're calling it a condenser but is the CO2 actually condensing into a liquid? If yes than I see why you used CO2, if no, why are you using CO2 instead of hydrogen?

Slight, using a thermal switch to toggle your pump on/off is ideal for this - it lets you control the temperature that the water gets pumped out at. However, it really depends on a few variables :
How fast is the hot water coming in? If you're pumping in from 3 geysers, then it would overheat pretty quickly.

How much surface area of cooling pipes? This can be a bit of trial and error.

CO2? Not essential, but isn't a bad thing

Personally for me, i've always had a radiator of pipes with cooled hydrogen inside them. I have a thermal switch set up to a thermo regulator to toggle on if i need to cool this hydrogen further, and a gas filter on a manual switch for dumping hydrogen that was cooled too far (freezing the geyser water, rather than cooling it).

Hope that helps  

[PickPay]

Looks great, thanks for sharing !

[Eadra]

Yes Slight, the CO2 turns into a liquid. In my experience, the H2 gas travels through the pipe too fast to make a drastic effect on the water temperature, but will effect the gas temperatures. There is no good way to keep the H2 gas in contact with the water for long enough to drop the water's temperatures. The liquid Co2 falls into the water and removes heat from water in spikes that dramatically changes the temperatures.

Lifegrow, I have not seen other people design it, and maybe it has happened naturally for other long term players, but I have been asked many times how I cool my geysers and thought I should help out those that have asked in a different media form so that they have something to reference when I am offline. If it did not help you, oh well, but I do hope it helps some players.

[Lifegrow]

1 hour ago, Eadra said:

Yes Slight, the CO2 turns into a liquid. In my experience, the H2 gas travels through the pipe too fast to make a drastic effect on the water temperature, but will effect the gas temperatures. There is no good way to keep the H2 gas in contact with the water for long enough to drop the water's temperatures. The liquid Co2 falls into the water and removes heat from water in spikes that dramatically changes the temperatures.

Lifegrow, I have not seen other people design it, and maybe it has happened naturally for other long term players, but I have been asked many times how I cool my geysers and thought I should help out those that have asked in a different media form so that they have something to reference when I am offline. If it did not help you, oh well, but I do hope it helps some players.

Saturate the pipes/wheezewort room fully with Hydrogen and it will turn 90 degree water to ice in seconds

Eadra, about the liquid CO2, I didn't see you mention it in your initial post, that's why I brought it up. I'm not downplaying your build, as i said in my original reply, however to come onto the forums and assign a name for something that people have been doing for weeks, is a little ambitious  

Yes, we all make minor tweaks to existing systems/designs, and yes - by all means be proud of your "refined" system - however, this is a community of sharing without reservation - and to "claim" something unoriginal as your "creation" is a wee bit egotistical. I didn't intend to make this into an argument, you may not recall but I have popped into your stream a couple of times - one of which to help you (or at least give you some tips) on fixing your gas piping? Remember the comb?  

As regards you posting this as a guide for people who have inquired, might I suggest you do a quick forum search for "water cooling" and peruse the other 160 posts at your leisure.

Keep up the good work.

[Eadra]

The name was for reference not a claim to say I need credit for anything. People need to be able to run a search for something and to do that they need a name. I don't care about credit, I just wanted to help people with simpler cooling ideas. I have done a search for cooling water and I see a lot of people asked and not many solid answers explaining how someone accomplishes it. That's why it keeps getting asked. I just wanted to help, and if this "unoriginal idea" helps, that's all I wanted to accomplish.

[Lifegrow]

Fair enough, my mistake - Apologies.

I have never questioned your build ("It's a clean system don't get me wrong") I'm just not a fan of people claiming builds that are clearly not their own - there seems to be an awful lot of that on both youtube and twitch. 

Credit the brainiacs that come up with this stuff I say... Lord knows i've made it a point to mention risu, moonkis, etc on my stream. They're the guys doing weird and wonderful stuff with the game - and finding the definitive answers to the questions we all have