How to mix N2O and Volatiles SAFELY

[MisterCrow]

How do you create your fuel mix (1:1 ratio) with these two fuels? Every time I try, they autoignite when mixed and...boom. If I cool N20 down, it just liquifies, which is no good.

[JeanDeaux]

It's more likely than not that it's the temperature causing your explosive results. Any volatile gas with a temperature above 30°C is on the verge of exploding.

When mixing, you'll also want both gasses to be the same temperature so that the mole/mixture is consistent, you can get different ratio's of mixture as your temperature differences vary. I like to use a heat exchanger between the two gasses to ensure they match in temperature just before mixing them with a gas mixer.

[MisterCrow]

Thanks for that, will give that a go :)

[Tuittu]

Please report your findings or even write down how did you managed to do it. I'm about to setup a fuel mixing system as well. I'm planning to use O2 and H2 mix.

I'm a bit confused about the phase changing system.

[MisterCrow]

Managed to finally get it working. I can't get my head around what temperatures / pressures phase change N2O (Stationpedia doesn't really provide any helpful information here either - unless I'm understanding it all wrong).

Anyway, it seems N2O starts liquifying when pressure is greater than around 1Mpa, so trick is to keep it cold, and at low pressure. Volatiles are easy because keeping them as a gas is much easier.

Incidentally, my whole reason for doing this was to make a very hot fuel for the advanced furnace, to produce stellite. Turns out that I need not bother, as they must have changed something in the game since I last played it, to allow a perfect fuel mix (2:1 H2 / O2) to make stellite now. So my whole day faffing around with all this turns out to have been a waste! Oh well, science is fun!

Anyhow...here's how I did it (I'm on Mars, all outside btw). It's crude, but it works:

Ice crusher connected to filtration unit set to filter out nitrogen, leaving pure N2O from crushing nitrice (only use nitrice in this crusher). Keep an eye on the pressure and temperature of the small tank, making sure not to over pressurise it (don't dump tonnes of nitrice in all at once!). Attach a radiator / radiators to the pipes to keep them cool enough. On different worlds you may need to rethink this, but works fine on Mars due to warmish days and cold nights.

Build a gas mixer, connect your gas mixer input to your N2O pipe and the other to your volatiles pipe (connected to a portable or small tank of volatiles). Put a few radiators on the volatiles input pipe to, to help keep the volatiles gasses cool too.

Gas mixer 1:1 ratio. The output of this should go to a large tank so as to keep pressures low. Again, radiators on this fuel pipe a good idea to keep your gas temperatures low - very important because over about 30 degrees, the fuel mix will ignite in the pipes / tank and disaster will strike!

On Mars, this should all remain stable outside due to -50 to +20 temperatures being safe in Mars' atmosphere. On the moon you'll need to make sure the gas doesn't get too cold and freeze in your pipes (though they have to get VERY cold for this to actually happen). Simple solution is to throw a pipe heater on there are switch it on if things get too cool (just don't leave it unattended for too long!). All of this can be automated though if you need, I just haven't gone that far.

TL;DR Keep all gases cool, and pressures low by using large tanks. This will stop N2O liquifying and igniting with volatiles.

[Wolfie_]

Originally posted by Tuittu:

I'm a bit confused about the phase changing system.

You're not alone in that. :D I mean, sure H2O phases (Ice <-> Water <-> Steam) I think everyone familiar with that one, but Stationeers sure does take things to the next level.

Mick (aka, CowsAreEvil) has a video out which might serve as useful starting point (and does touch upon the whole N2O + H2 fuel mixing challenge):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdzkG1Fk9NQ

[MisterCrow]

Excellent, will check that out. Thanks Wolfie_

[Tuittu]

Yup. That CowsAreEvil video helped a lot. His videos are pure gold as usual.

[Mr. Pestbird]

someone made a nice graph for temp / pressure / phase changes. i use that very often: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/voj4scjipd?lang=en

[LittleShade]

Nitrolyzer is heavily influenced by external temperatures when it operates. Therefore, it needs to be vacuumed by putting it in a glass box to operate the same on all planets.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3219132817

[Nargon]

Both gases must have temperature about 20-25°C. The pressure of N2O and the result mixture must be max. 1 MPa. These are safe values. No condensation or explosion. But it has a limited usage. It is fine for furnace or combustion centrifuge. But for rocket is pressure 1MPa very low amount of fuel.

[LittleShade]

If you need more than that, set the target pressure and temperature. So that it doesn't liquefy in the tank.
define MIN_TEMP 287 #287K(15'c) - 1002.Kpa <--- modify
define FUEL_MAX_PRESS 1000 #1MKpa <--- modify
And be aware that the N2O temperature has increased, so it needs to be cooled before fuel mixing.

Alternatively, it would be better to consider storing N2O in a liquid state and vaporizing it to use it.