Fuel

Superfuel
Specific heat	20.86 Joule / mol
Autoignition temperature	323.15 K
	v; t; e;

Fuel
Specific heat	20.86 Joule / mol
Autoignition temperature	573.15 K
	v; t; e;

Description

There are two categories of fuel, solid fuel and gas mixtures.

Solid fuel

There are currently only two solid fuels available in the game Coal, and Charcoal. Both can be used to fuel the Solid Fuel Generator. When burning coal and charcoal they produce the following gases.

Source	Pollutant	CO2
1 Coal	3 mol	10 mol
1 Charcoal	3 mol	3 mol

Gas Fuel

In order to use gases for fuel you need a combustible gas combined with an oxidizer. There are two flammable gases in the game Hydrogen and Methane, and there are three oxygen sources; Oxygen,Ozone and Nitrous Oxide. This can be done by manually mixing chunks of ice, or by using a Gas Mixer .

When using liquid fuel some heat energy produced will be spent to evaporate liquid fuel components.

Fuel Combustion

Volatiles	Oxidizer	Fuel	Combustion products				Heat
Volatiles	Oxidizer	Fuel	Pollutants	Nitrogen	Carbon Dioxide	Water	Heat
2 Methane	2 Oxygen		3 Pollutants		6 Carbon Dioxide		572 kJ
1 Methane	1 Nitrous Oxide			2 Nitrogen	2 Carbon Dioxide		572 kJ
3 Methane	2 Ozone		3 Pollutants		6 Carbon Dioxide	1 Water	1716 kJ
2 Hydrogen	1 Oxygen					3 Water	612 kJ
1 Hydrogen	1 Nitrous Oxide			1 Nitrogen		1 Water	612 kJ
3 Hydrogen	1 Ozone					4 Water	1836 kJ

Making Fuels

Fuel can be mixed in a number of ways, by feeding the ice directly into the input of a furnace, by feeding the ice into an Ice Crusher, by melting the ices in an enclosed space and collecting the gases.

Depending on how exact the proportions of your gas mixture are you will end up with different end temperatures and pressures after ignition.

Dirty Fuel

A fuel that can be made easily in the early game is Dirty Fuel. It can be made by mixing Volatile Ice and Oxite at a 2:1 ratio.

Source	Gases	Percentage
2 Volatiles	20 mol 2 mol	58% 5.8%
1 Oxite	22.5 mol 2.5 mol	32.6% 3.26%

This is a simple ratio and will burn fairly well, but will leave some unburned Oxygen. A mixture of 45 Volatile Ice to 22 Oxite will result in an ideal Fuel to oxidizer ratio, but will still contain Nitrogen which will not help with combustion. If more pure fuel mixtures are desired the unused or undesired constituents will need to be filter out, and the fuel mixture will potentially need to be re-balanced. But Dirty Fuel will perform adequately well in the early part of the game.

An alternative recipe uses Volatiles ice and Nitrice at a 1:8.8 (5:44) ratio. Although nitrous oxide is a more energetic oxidizer, the large amounts of nitrogen present on Nitrice make the combustion reach lower temperatures and less water is produced.

Refined Fuels

Later in the game, or on more advanced planets, gases can be collected, filtered and combined to make pure fuel mixtures. This will require holding Tanks, Filtration units, and Gas Mixers. On some planets gases may be collected directly from the atmosphere,This can be accomplished with an active vent, some pipe and a gas tank storage. Depending on the atmosphere pollutants or inert gases will need to be removed from the collected gases, a filtration unit and a filter will be needed for this. On other planets there is no atmosphere and gases will have to be collected by crushing Ices. Crushing Ices is by far the most common source for gases early in the game.

Basic Ice Crusher Setup

A basic Ice Crusher setup will provide most of your gas collection and mixing needs. Gases can be collected by crushing Ices or by collecting atmospheric gases, if present.

Parts required

Optional

1 x Active Vent

With this setup you can collect gases from ices to mix later. You can also pre-mix the gases by adding Volatile ice and Oxite at a 2:1 ratio. You can then load the pre-mixed fuel in canisters in pre-measured amounts using the pressure regulator.

Setup

Place the ice crusher
Place a pipe facing to the right
Place a volume pump
Place a pipe tee facing left,right, and down.
Place a canister storage below the tee
Place a regulator to the right of the tee
Place a tee facing left,right, and down, Or an elbow facing left and down.
Place a second canister storage below the tee or elbow.
(Optional) Place an active vent to the right of the last canister storage.

Usage

Fuel mixing

Place Volatile Ice and Oxites in the ice crusher at a 2:1 ratio.
* You can safely fit 8 Volatile to 4 Oxites in a canister. A Ratio of 10:5 will overfill a single canister
** Be sure to pump all the gases out of the crusher into a single canister, otherwise the mixture will fluxuate as the grinder processes and outputs ices.
*** Also be sure to turn off your regulator while you are collecting gases.
Pump the gases to your storage containers.
Set the regulator to the approximate pressure required to load the amount of fuel you need into the canister.
* You can check the exact amount in the canister using the tablet and the gas analyzer

Refiling oxygen tanks

Purge the pipe network of any spurious gases from previous operations.
Crush Oxites in the the ice crusher
Pump the Oxites into a canister.
*A canister can hold approximately 12 Oxites.
*You will need to use a nitrogen filter in additon to your regular CO2 filter when breathing crushed Oxites.

Emptying Canisters

Place any canisters you want to empty into the far left canister storage
Set the active vent to "outward" and turn it on.

Collecting Atmospheric Gases

Place any canisters you want to fill in the far left slot.
Set the active vent to "Inwards" and turn it on.
*Be aware that the canister will fill very quickly, be careful not to over-pressurize the canister.

Mixing Fuel

You can easily mix fuel by adding oxidizes and fuel, which have been previously collected to a pipe network in order to put it into tank storage. From the tank storage it can be pumped in to canister or directly into a furnace.

Mixing and storing Nitro

Note that keeping Nitrous Oxide below autoignition temperature means condensation at pressures above 1MPa pressure, making it hard to store or mix fuel in large quantities without liquid management as the latent heat of condensation can result in enough heating for autoignition to occur. While this reaction releases the same amount of energy as the classic fuel combustion above, it does so using half the volatiles and heating waste gases with less thermal mass resulting in higher temperatures.

Collecting gases

This can be accomplished with an active vent, some pipe and a gas tank storage. Raw gases can also be collected from an Ice Crusher setup or by melting them in a furnace. Regardless of the collection method the gases will need to be separated with a filtration setup. Once gases are collected and filtered they can be mixed into fuels. Using a gas mixer requires that both gasses have equal temperature for a correct ratio of gasses in the output

Basic Canister Mixing Setup

Once filtered and stored gases can be mixed to obtain purified fuel, these fuel will burn more completely and have fewer combustion products

Parts required

Setup

Place both Portable Connectors
Connect both Portable Connectors to the the inputs of the Pipe Gas Mixer
Connect the Pipe Gas Mixer output to the Gas Tank Storage input
Connect the Pipe Gas Mixer power input to power source.

Use

Put first Portable Gas Tank or scrubber filled with O₂ on one Portables Connector.
Put second Portable Gas Tank or scrubber filled with H₂/volatile on the other Portables Connector.
Use a wrench to connect both Portable Gas Tanks to their places.
Optional: for a perfect fuel mix, ensure the temperatures of both gases are exactly the same.
Set the Pipe Gas Mixer to desired combination (34% O₂ + 66% H₂) Note: as the combination is a floating point number, you can also enter 0.333... or 0.666... with a Labeller to get a more precise mix.
Turn on Pipe Gas Mixer
Place an empty Gas Canister in Gas Tank Storage.

Gases and Liquids
Elements	Compounds	Mixtures	Other
		Fuel (66.6% H₂ + 33.3% O₂) Superfuel (50% H₂ + 50% N₂O) Air (75% N₂ + 25% O₂)	Atmosphere Coolant