Mixing and Filtering

Mixing and Filtering

Gas mixers and filters are essential tools for manipulating the composition of gasses within a pipe network.

GasMixerGasFilter

Gas Mixer

Gas mixers are used to combine gasses in specific ratios within a pipe network. They are essential for creating controlled gas mixtures for various applications.

Gas mixers have 3 connections: 2 inputs and 1 output, as shown below:

PrimaryPrimaryGasMixerOutputOutput
SideSide

Gas mixers will still respect the requested gas mixture even if one of the input gasses is not available. For example:

  • If the requested mixture is 22% oxygen and 78% nitrogen, but there is no available oxygen, the mixer will not work until oxygen is available.
  • If oxygen is available, but at a pressure lower than required to create the proper mixture at the requested pressure, the mixer will still create the mixture, but the output will be at a lower pressure than requested.

Gas mixers also mix gasses based on pressure, not on mols. This can cause problems if the gasses are at different temperatures. For example:

  • Presume a gas mixer was asked to mix Oxygen and Nitrogen at a ratio of 1:2 at a certain pressure.
  • The Nitrogen in this case is double the temperature of the Oxygen.
  • Hotter gas has more pressure, and thus fewer mols per volume than Oxygen.
  • Because of this, Nitrogen will have half the mols compared to Oxygen when the gas mixer attempts to create the mix.
  • The output will be 1:1 instead of 1:2. You'll have 1 mol of Nitrogen per 1 mol of Oxygen, instead of 2 mols of Nitrogen per 1 mol of Oxygen.

Gas mixers can be used in a variety of applications, for example:

  • Mixing oxygen and nitrogen to create a breathable atmosphere
  • Mixing oxygen and plasma for plasma burning to create Tritium

Gas Filter

Gas filters are used to separate gasses from a mixture within a pipe network.

InputInputGasFilterOutputOutput
Filtered OutputFiltered Output

Gas filters will become blocked and will not filter gas if either output is blocked.

Gas filters can be used in a variety of applications, for example:

  • Filtering out unwanted gasses from a pipe network
  • Separating specific gasses for storage in a station's recyclernet