Collecting Atmosphere on Mars

[Paladwyn]

I remember from a long time ago, having an active vent into a filtration unit would be sufficient enough to get the job done.

Seems something has changed.

Struggling to collect atmosphere in any reliable way, currently. Looking for a better early game solution. We don't have the materials to make the powered vents so sticking with basic things is better.

I've been running tests on how fast things are pulling in air and I get hung up pretty quick. I just wanted to collect air in a tank to use as a coolant flush for the gas generator, but I can't seem to pressurise a tank more than a few mpa.

Other suggestions say to add more active vents but make sure they are spaced out on their own grid, or use passive vents and use a filtration without filters in it, or a volume pump with passive vents.

Anybody have any good tips for this before I start making a wall of active vents?

[Alizia Kaline]

Multiple active vents is the trick. The change you are experimenting is now, more it's pressurized at the output, harder it is to increase. Mine was 4 active vents (running only the day for the temperature), now it's 3 big ones, filling a big tank.

In the same way, filtration works better with high pressure at the input and low at the output.

It's not a big problem as collecting atmo are always a passive thing you let run during days anyway.

[Sofa King Cute]

Hey Paladwyn - I am also learning and improving my systems on Mars. I have a pretty reliable grasp on creating breathable air. I have automated this using my limited IC10 programming knowledge - but you could use logic chips for setting the Active Vents:

1. Make a tank, a gas sensor, a liquid drain an active vent that can be controlled by chips/IC10 (or run outside manually at night...

2. Set the vent to push atmoshere into the tank - but only when the temperature is below -10 degrees (263.15 Kelvin). In the pipe between the tank and the active vent place one

3. The nights on Mars are cold - below -10 degrees and at a certain tank pressure the CO2 starts to turn liquid. Same goes for the Pollutant. If you run the vent (more vents and drains are better, obviously) multiple nights you will reach a tank pressure (5MPa?) that reliably removes CO2 and Pollutant from the gas through the drain.

4 Voila! You now have a breathable Oxygen/Nitrogen Mix at the cost of only running 100Watts worth of active vent.

5. I actually capture the liquid CO2 and Pollutant into another liquid tank by using a drain valve instead of drains. I then run multiple evaporation chambers set to 650kPa to evaporate the liquids into the atmosphere. The heat exchange connection is connected to the main tank, helping to cool it down even further.

I'll subsribe to this discussion - feel free to ask any questions concerning this :)

[Paladwyn]

I was actually looking to find a way to make a room that kept a gas generator inside running. At our stage in the game and the output of the generator, I have 3 active vents pulling in and will shut down when the temperature gets too low. This works very well with only a small amount of logic needed. An active vent set to vent at 50kpa and it keeps the temperature stable between 10-35C.

I tried running cool night air into a tank and it worked, but abandoned it for now simply because it was over-engineered. I could have used more active vents to pull the night air in but tried the other way and it works, that is until it gets ramped up and it can't keep the temps down.

But I'm planning out for a more permanent base setup and was overwhelmed with the amount of new parts that didn't exist 3 years ago. I will definitely need to use a coolant system.

We have a breathable room for growing plants and it's fine, for a temporary place, but when the main base gets built, I was concerned about the ability to draw in enough air.

[Sofa King Cute]

Alright. For cooling a room I have TWO possible solutions. One requires a logic I/O chip and a memory, the other requires steel:

In a room you are limited to a pressure differential of max 200kpa. So, you either need to actively PUSH air into the room and simultaneously REMOVE air at the same speed to provide a sufficient airflow. Or you use a heat exchanger and keep the room at a constant pressure of, let's say 50kpa

Option A: One active vent pushing (red, Mode 1) into the room and one active vent pushing (red. Mode 1) out of the room. Do not use the blue "outward" setting of the vents, they move a lot less air than the "inward" mode.

Now you need to set the outer vent parameter "PressureInternal" to 150 (default is 50.000) using the memory and the Logic Writer chip to set the values. Set "PressureExternal" value of the inner vent to below 150. Let's try 100kpa.

Voila, you have two vents constantly pushing outside air into and out of the room at a fairly high rate.

Option b:
I cool my hot steam gas from my H2 combustor using a couple active vents pushing outside air through a pipe network. You can manipuilate the resistance aka pressure of the pipe by adding one way valves and using a pipe cowl instead of a passive vent for the exhaust. Aim for an internal pipe pressure of 2-3 MPa by playing with the amount of one way valves. Connect the pipe to one side of a large direct heat exhanger or multiple small ones in parallel. Connect the room you want to cool to the other side of the heat exchanger. I think this solution provides a little less cooling than Option a but you do not have logic settings to consider using this - only need the alloys for making the heat exchangers.