Improve my electrolyzer design

[Cipupec2]

I have played with several electrolyzer designs, with goal of creating a self powering setup with maximum oxygen output which can easily built. With help of forumites this what I ended up with:

This setup :
* Use the fact that hydrogen is lighter than oxygen, utilizing the shape for gas separation and need no power for gas filtering.
* Electrolizer can produce up to 888g/s of oxygen or 532KG daily, on larger setups the air wasn't able to defuse fast enough to the pumps leading to Electrolizer often shutting down due to over pressure, thus producing 200-400KG of oxygen, while this consistently produce about 530KG daily.
* Make good use of pump up time, from observation only two packet (leading and trailing on the extra pump) out of 60 aren't 500g.

Note:
* The setup will require about one cycle to get into balance.
* In the long run to maintain that balance its important not to get output pipe blocked, so you'd need a mechanical relief on the exits it.

 

Can you spot any issues, offer improvements and or simplify this design for the same outcome? 

[KittenIsAGeek]

Looks like for what you want your set up will work just fine.  I would suggest closing off some of the area around your fans -- It'll improve efficiency.  In my case, I use two electrolyzers with three fans, like this:

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Rather than focusing on "how much can one electrolyzer put out" I focused on a guaranteed 1kg/s oxygen flow with cooling. The bottom one has its own hydrogen generator, but they share a clean water and coolant feed.  I've got more hydrogen than I know what to do with at this point. LOL.

ANYWAY, you'll notice that I've closed off as much of the area as I can.  I haven't tested it lately, but when I did my initial tests it showed improved efficiency and reduced heat generation over a more spacious design.

[thejohn1567]

2 hours ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

 

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im stealing this forever

[Cipupec2]

@KittenIsAGeek, I love your design, it looks very neat and modular. Although almost certainly not as optimal you can always build more, right?! What are the liquid valves for thermo regulation? Also isn't one hydrogen generator too little, or did you put your water pump on another loop?

I use two pumps per Electrolizer because each electrolizer can produce 888g/s oxygen, while each pump can only remove 500g/s. And for efficiency I am using two different pressure settings for each pump, the one on the right essentially works continuously, while the one on the left only turns on if pressure gets too high, as result I get virtually only 500g/s packets, and by taking out the extra oxygen I prevent electrolizer choking.

I have tried playing with several variation adding/removing tile here and there but for no real effect, the most important thing here the cone shape bellow which I believe help defuse oxygen down ward faster. But the extra tiles past the pump are leftovers that defiantly can be removed.

[thejohn1567]

Yours makes sure you get max efficiency out of the electrolyzer while KittenIsAGeek  is ensuring there will be a constant 1kg/s into the gas pipe. Slightly different goals, it seems like you've both essentially done the most efficient build possible. You will be filling your pipe with nearly with 888g/s average anyway so it's not a huge difference besides maybe space.

[Cipupec2]

My setup get max efficiency per electrolyzer, if I add double up, I'll be getting more than 1.5kgs Oxygen

 

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also I did a quick test run and I am getting a huge load of extra power/hydro :
 

 

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The only limit here is my water supply, and I have checked that I am getting daily average of 2kg a cycle, with big enough pond to deal with inactivity period.

[Steve Raptor]

Looks like a working SPOM to me, but whats the memory toggle for?

Also I think you can make it more compact.

 

Il share my design, which looks similar to yours but more compact to save space.

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The design is self explanatory, with 3 pumps to prevent over pressure.

Neither Hydrogen or oxygen are causing over pressure.

Excess hydrogen Is used to power the base, and oxygen is consumed by 9 dupes, so there is little extra gathering at the bottom of the pumps.

Electrolyzer working full time.

Instead of storing the hydrogen in a tank, I use the excess hydrogen to power my base.

Each transformer supports a circuit and takes priority over the main grid (means power grid won't supply power as long as the hydrogen generator can do it).

This SPOM is 99.9% power efficient (means no overproduction) and powers a very large portion of my base (more so when over-tuned), while staying true to the name and powers the electroylzer circuit as well by itself.

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Note the hydrogen generator efficiency in the second picture.

 

[Cipupec2]

18 minutes ago, Steve Raptor said:

Il share my design, which looks similar to yours but more compact to save space.

Though, space often isn't a rare commodity late game, I like your design it is more easily accessible to build/fix and work around early on (like with cooling I needed something just like that with my early AETN build) Also I should really use a power control as well.

What is your oxygen output and what are your pressure settings?

30 minutes ago, Steve Raptor said:

Each transformer supports a circuit and takes priority over the main grid (means power grid won't supply power as long as the hydrogen generator can do it).

How does that work? what is the OR for? its a bit hard to tell from the build. 

19 minutes ago, Steve Raptor said:

whats the memory toggle for?

I use the memory toggle for the extra Oxygen pump, and turn it on only if pressure goes above 600, until it goes bellow 500. Less switching on/off seem to result in a more consistent 500g/s packets output (thus less energy use), and definitely less noise for me.

[MTzu]

I use this design to feed my exosuit docks.

without overlay

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ventilation overlay

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automation overlay

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It uses a pipe element sensor + gas shutoff filter. This filter fails when you back up hydrogen or oxygen.

To avoid this I have built in a oxygen overflow detection system.

To avoid backing up hydrogen you can burn excess in another hydrogen generator connected to your main power grid or store it in a gas reservoir like in this example.

If you want to feed your open base with this oxygen you should cool it first. I use a radiant pipe + hydrogen weezewort room for this

[Steve Raptor]

 

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What is your oxygen output and what are your pressure settings?

Oxygen output is nominal, at 888 g/s since the electrolyzer never overpressurize.

Hydrogen pump: Above 750g

Oxygen Pump: above 600g

 

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How does that work? what is the OR for? its a bit hard to tell from the build. 

Automation overlay:

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Automation theory of operation:

• The line that powers the SPOM circuit gets the priority.
•  When the battery that feeds the SPOM circuit gets too low on charge (50 active, 100 standby) it enables its own power line and cuts off the other, external line.
• When the battery reaches 100 charge, it disconnects itself from the generator and enables the external power line.
• The generator now powers the second smart battery (20 Active, 100 standby) and a transformer, those in turn power external consumers.
•  If both batteries have sufficient charge stored (both are on standby). they will shut down the generator.
•  If one of the batteries goes active, the generator comes back online.
•  However since the power load on external line is typically more than the hydrogen generator can supply, it is rarely, if at all, in-active.

Power overlay:

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2 power lines:

• Feeds the SPOM circuit (the left one).
• Feeds some external circuit of your base via battery and a transformer (the right one).

The generator can feed only 1 line at a given time, and each of those lines are passing through a shutoff switch.

 

This is the summerized part, if you want to see the entire thing, you can check my original reddit post about this design:

Link to reddit post

[Djoums]

9 minutes ago, Steve Raptor said:

The generator can feed only 1 line at a given time, and each of those lines are passing through a shutoff switch.

Similar setup here but I added an element sensor in the generator pipe because of a failure once. The battery needed power and isolated the circuit, but there was no H2 left in the pipe (should not happen, but it did ). In this case power should be drawn from the central circuit to keep the system running.

[KittenIsAGeek]

8 hours ago, Cipupec2 said:

@KittenIsAGeek, I love your design, it looks very neat and modular. Although almost certainly not as optimal you can always build more, right?! What are the liquid valves for thermo regulation? Also isn't one hydrogen generator too little, or did you put your water pump on another loop?

I use two pumps per Electrolizer because each electrolizer can produce 888g/s oxygen, while each pump can only remove 500g/s. And for efficiency I am using two different pressure settings for each pump, the one on the right essentially works continuously, while the one on the left only turns on if pressure gets too high, as result I get virtually only 500g/s packets, and by taking out the extra oxygen I prevent electrolizer choking.

I have tried playing with several variation adding/removing tile here and there but for no real effect, the most important thing here the cone shape bellow which I believe help defuse oxygen down ward faster. But the extra tiles past the pump are leftovers that defiantly can be removed.

Alright, so.. there could be a second hydrogen generator for the second set of pumps, but I hadn't built it yet.

My design doesn't optimize for electrolyzer output -- it is optimized for oxygen vs power.  Basically the two fans will ALWAYS be pumping at their maximum rate of 500g/s oxygen each.  They hydrogen fan will kick on periodically, and the electrolyzers will run a little more than half the time.  This reduces heat per electrolyzer, making cooling them more efficient.   The average power draw for the entire system when running at maximum (10 dupes) is about 640 watts.  This includes everything: gas pumps, electrolyzers, water pumps, etc.  It produces enough hydrogen for 1009 watts of power provided your hydrogen generators are NOT buffed.

The gas pressure sensors are mostly easy-access switches EXCEPT for the one for the hydrogen fan. That one is set to "above 600".  All the rest are set to "above zero."  The thermo sensors are set to "above 17c" to trip the coolant.

The liquid valves are set to 2kg/s of coolant from a slush geyser, so no thermo regulators.  However, if you have already cooled your pool, it doesn't take much power to maintain the temperature and the excess hydrogen will probably be enough.  Also, I've been thinking of re-designing the room with the hydrogen generator -- that wheezewart eventually got the room down to -67c, meaning there's a lot of potential cooling I'm losing out on by sealing it up.

For priming, I  use gas bridges to a vent and run the pumps until its a vaccuum.  Then I shut the pumps off and turn the electrolyzers on and run the side pumps at "above 1000" until the top is full of hydrogen.

Here's a screenshot of one I just finished in my current survival run.

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The water reservoir up top I filled by gravity from opening up water in the starting biome. Directly below is a slush geyser.  I haven't built suits yet, so I took advantage of CO2 and deoderizers to make a small trip into the slime biome.  I _do_ have the sandbox enabled, but I only used it to build the gas reserviors since they're took far down the tech tree to build by cycle 30.  I have about 5 cycles until the hydrogen reservoir fills up to figure out where I'm going to send the excess hydrogen.

In my previous test (where the first screenshots came from) the electrolyzers used water from sieve that processed the waste from toilets/showers and the waste coolant -- and there was still water to spare. 

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I haven't built it yet in survival run, but that's my end goal.   The far bottom and right-most pipe from the slush geyser runs to a different part of the base.  The weird piping in the screenshot basically means that any surplus water gets sent to that far pipe (previously it went into the bottom chamber and was pumped out, but that's inefficient.  Why run a pump?)

And, finally, some power screenshots.

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So.. about 540Kg of oxygen in one cycle used about 330 kJ of power.  Pretty efficient!  (The only system on the hydrogen generator is my oxygen system).  For clarification, the power consumption shots are from my survival build, not my test build.

[Cipupec2]

2 hours ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

My design doesn't optimize for electrolyzer output -- it is optimized for oxygen vs power.  Basically the two fans will ALWAYS be pumping at their maximum rate of 500g/s oxygen each. 

I am not sure that your assumptions here are correct. First, you forgot to account for your electrolyzer, because every time it over pressurize means it use the same energey for smaller "packets" of output. Second, I doubt that your packets are all 500g/s, from what I observed the first and last packet seem to always be smaller, it seem that the more your system stops/start the less efficient it is. And overall I am not sure how much a factor it is, since my main oxygen pumps work continuously, and while the other I used with a memory toggle to reduce the amount of time it restarts. Finally, I am not sure how do you account for cooling when you use a slash gayser/wheezworth solution while I am an AETN device.Still, at the bottom line, if you are making 1KG of oxygen while at the same time I make over 1.5KG, it means that I am making 1.5 times more hydrogen as well.. Right now I am running 2 Hydro generators non stop, AETN and still have to vent excess hydro gen so it wont backup my system... 

Here are my numbers using the two electrolizer setup like you do:

 

Its possible that your method is more efficient, I am making ~1.43kg of Oxygen per 1kJ (1050.5/730.5), with daily net power gain of 214.5Kj

Anyway, I still need to test @Steve Raptor design, which might be better than both of ours

[Grimgaw]

10 minutes ago, Cipupec2 said:

First, you forgot to account for your electrolyzer, because every time it over pressurize means it use the same energey for smaller "packets" of output.

That's not how Electrolizer works. What you see in tooltip is average per second (averaged over 5 ticks/s afaik). Output and power usage is proprtional to that.

[Cipupec2]

Yes, my averages are mostly 1000g/s, while on a setup with one pump only that I tried, there are plenty of 333g/s and 666g/s.

[jfc]

isn't the best setup using a shutoff and element sensor just for an extra 10 power now anyway? you don't need to worry about building all the crap tiles all over

[Slvrsrfr]

What I love is that it is conventional. No WW. Does this thing get warm? Can I see the guts? the venting and stuff...how many kg's of h20 does it consume per cycle?

[Cipupec2]

There isn't much use for showing the guts, because big part of it relies on your input/output and would adapted to the specif map, and I like to add a lot of failsafe shutoffs which I haven't done here to avoid confusion. That said I had done something like this for my initial version, though I have tweaked it since:
 

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also here is another self contained version of the same thing I tested with wheezworth ability to sustain temps with high temp water: 

 

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