Liquid Hydrogen Maker (prototype, debug mode)

[g5457s]

This is a liquid hydrogen maker I built in debug mode, and I think it's (hopefully) feasible in survival mode.

This is a prototype and my very first liquid hydrogen build in debug mode, so there will be quite a lot of kinks and downsides that need improving.

 

There are 25 tiles of super coolant on the upper section. If your seed has a celestial body that gives around 15kgs of Fullerene every 30 cycles (1500kg Super Coolant, about 1.5 tiles), it will take around 600 cycles to get that much super coolant, not counting the time to refuel and stuff. With 2 Petroleum Rockets, that is down to 300 cycles and vice versa.

Liquid pumps, gas pumps, aquatuners and whatnot are made out of Thermium, though the materials can be much less exotic (e.g. Iron liquid pumps, Steel aquatuners, etc). Insulated walls are made out of insulation, but again, the materials can be less exotic (e.g. Ceramic).

Aquatuners are submerged in oil.

 

Piping. All of the insulated pipes are made out of insulation, though I think Ceramic should be enough? Meanwhile, the Radiant Pipes are made out of Thermium, though Gold, Tungsten or Steel can suffice? Notice the radiant pipe passing through the oil section. This keeps the oil's temperature at bay, though that could use work (or an overhaul).

 

Gas Piping

 

Automation.There are two Thermo Sensors. The left one is set to activate if below -253C and there's a NOT gate connected to the left liquid pump. It is also connected to an AND gate. The right one is set to activate if above -254C and it is connected to an AND gate. The AND gate activates when both thermo-sensors are activated, starting the right liquid pump and right aquatuner.

[KittenIsAGeek]

Yeah, ceramic works just fine when using Aquatuners to make hydrogen.  I did a way-over-built system a few days ago..

[Carnis]

This build does not seem feasible, since oil will overheat (after some hundreds of cycles), as heat has nowhere to go. Also its better to use pipes & liquid reservoirs & skip liquid pumps.

You only need a liquid pump at the liquid hydrogen room.

[Saturnus]

You should definitely also try to keep the amount of supercoolant used in a build to less 2000kg total, and preferably less than 1000kg. Otherwise you'll find yourself not doing much else than shuttling in materials to get supercoolant.

[clickrush]

Your build looks nice, but I would try to optimize towards exactness and use much less super coolant. 600 cycles worth of material gathering is just too much IMO.

I think it can be built as a closed aquatuner loop (no pumps and no reservoir) this would already reduce the amount of coolant used. Another issue is the very tight liquid state range of hydrogen. You already encountered this problem as can be seen in the picture.

Instead of holding so much super coolant in a reservoir I would try to hold much more hydrogen plus tempshift plates to give the system more stability.

Then with a closed loop one could use shutoff on the radiator side and a pipe temperature sensor, so the coolant can heat up sufficiently before returning to the aquatuner. Remember an aquatuner cools 10kg by 14K/s of the super coolant 8.44 heat capacity, which is too much cooling for 1kg/s of hydrogen even if it comes straight out of the electrolyzer.

8 minutes ago, Carnis said:

This build does not seem feasible, since oil will overheat (after some hundreds of cycles), as heat has nowhere to go. Also its better to use pipes & liquid reservoirs & skip liquid pumps.

You only need a liquid pump at the liquid hydrogen room.

Yes this is an important point too. The radiator section of the aquatuner that cools itself doesn't do anything but slow the system down. Eventually it will overheat. I would cool this with a steam turbine instead.