Fermenter
More actions
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| Paintable | Yes |
|---|---|
| Constructable in Rockets | No |
| Operation | |
| Power Usage | 10-210w |
| Prefab Hash | 1103525139 |
| Prefab Name | StructureFermenter |
| Construction | |
| Placed with | Kit (Atmospherics) |
| Placed on | Small Grid |
| Paintable | Yes |
| Requires Frame | Yes |
| Is Airtight? | No |
| Stage 1 | |
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| Next Stage Construction | |
| Constructed with item | 2 x Kit (Pipe) |
| Deconstruction | |
| Deconstructed with | Hand Drill |
| Item received | Kit (Atmospherics) |
| Stage 2 | |
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| Next Stage Construction | |
| Constructed with tool | Welding Torch |
| Constructed with item | 5 x Steel Sheets |
| Deconstruction | |
| Deconstructed with | Wrench |
| Item received | 2 x Kit (Pipe) |
| Stage 3 | |
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| Deconstruction | |
| Deconstructed with | Angle Grinder |
| Item received | 5 x Steel Sheets |
Description
The Fermenter is a machine that converts bioproducts into Alcohol and Polluted Water.
It consumes 10 W when idle, and 210 W when processing items (taking 20 seconds per item).
Conversion rates
Different inputs result in different processing rates, shown as follows:
| Input | Alcohol / unit (Moles) | Polluted Water / unit (Moles) | Alcohol / Harvest (Moles) | Polluted Water / Harvest (Moles) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Decayed Food | 1 | 0.05 | N/A | N/A |
| Seeds (Any) | 6 | 0.3 | 6 | 0.3 |
| Biomass | 10 | 1 | N/A | N/A |
| Blueberry | 18 | 0.9 | 36 | 1.8 |
| Cocoa | 6 | 0.3 | 18 | 0.9 |
| Corn | 40 | 2 | 120 | 6 |
| Darga Fern | 2 | 0.1 | 6 | 0.3 |
| Fern | 2 | 0.1 | 4 | 0.2 |
| Hades Flower | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Hay | 3 | 0.15 | 45 | 3 |
| Mushroom | 2 | 0.1 | 6 | 0.3 |
| Potato | 8 | 0.4 | 16 | 0.8 |
| Pumpkin | 18 | 0.9 | 54 | 2.7 |
| Rice | 8 | 0.4 | 40 | 2 |
| Soybean | 6 | 0.3 | 18 | 0.9 |
| Sugarcane | 15 | 0.75 | 45 | 3 |
| Strawberry | 12 | 0.6 | 36 | 1.8 |
| Tomato | 12 | 0.6 | 36 | 1.8 |
| Watermelon | 40 | 2 | 40 | 2 |
| Wheat | 6 | 0.3 | 30 | 1.5 |
| Winterspawn | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Outputs for plants and seeds are created at 29°C, and have their polluted water contents at exactly 5% of their produced alcohol. Biomass is the only exception to this rule, generating 10% of their produced alcohol as water. Most plants benefit from being converted into Biomass first by processing them at a Recycler and Centrifuge before fermentation, although some exceptions exist. Corn and Watermelon produce more water and alcohol by being directly processed, while Blueberry, Pumpkin, Sugarcane, and Strawberry produce more alcohol (but not water) by being directly processed. If alcohol combustion byproducts are taken into account, they also produce more water by being directly procesed as well.
Production Optimization
From the conversion rate table, Pareto-optimal plants are Switchgrass (highest harvest after conversion to biomass), Corn (Highest unprocessed harvest), and Watermelon (Highest output/h on max yield fertilizer). A fermenter takes 20 seconds to process an item for a total of 180 items/hour, potentially diminishing the effectiveness of switchgrass because the output of as little as 5 plants is enough to saturate a fermenter. However, Fertilizer production requirements introduce overhead.
Because Hay is counted as biomass instead of food, it contributes towards growth cycles when used in an Advanced Composter. As such, max yield fertilizer production is best done using Wheat as input stock for food.
An advanced composter consumes 180 items/hour and 1.2 kmols of water to produce 60 fertilizer, 3kmol of Nitrogen and 3kmol of Methane. Stacks of fertilizer with different properties can be merged to achieve a mixture of ratio properties after fertilizer production, but at this point no analysis has been made on whether this achieves better production per plot.
| Plant | Time between harvests(Base) | Alcohol/harvest | Harvest Cycles/h(Base) | Items/Hour/Plot(Base) | Fertilizer/hour/Plot |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Switchgrass | 1332 | 150 (no fertilizer use) | 2.702 | 40.540 | |
| Wheat | 2700 | 0 (used for fertilizer) | 1.3 | 5.3 (8.6 on max yield fertilizer) | 1.7 (2.8 before self-use) |
| Watermelon | 3000 | 120 (max yield fertilizer) | 1.2 | 3.6 | -0.6 (2 cycles) |
| Corn (mature) | 5400 | 160 (max yield fertilizer) | 0.6 | 2.6 | -0.3 (2 cycles) |
| Corn (seeding) | 7200 | 200 (max yield fertilizer) | 0.5 | 2.5 | -0.25 (2 cycles) |
Some Pareto-optimal fertilizer mixes are as follows:
| Food Ratio | Biomass Ratio | Decayed Food Ratio | Additional Yield | Growth Cycles | Growth Speed Boost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0% | 100% | 0% | 1 | 7 | 0% |
| 0% | 12/15 | 3/15 | 1 | 6 | 5% |
| ... | |||||
| 0% | 0% | 100% | 1 | 2 | 25% |
| 5/15 | 9/15 | 1/15 | 2 | 5 | 1.6% |
| 5/15 | 6/15 | 4/15 | 2 | 4 | 6.6% |
| 5/15 | 3/15 | 7/15 | 2 | 3 | 11.6% |
| 5/15 | 0/15 | 10/15 | 2 | 2 | 16.6% |
An alternative way to think about the problem is by considering the space taken by a fermenter. Each fermenter takes up 6-12 plots of space depending on layout. 4 fermenters fully loaded with biomass take up 48 plots + 17.76 (rounded to 18) plots for switchgrass growth. In order to be more efficient, corn/watermelon production would need to saturate a single fermenter (12 plots) with 180 crops/hour. This leaves 66 plots available for plants, which need to produce 180 crops/hour for a minimum of 2.72 crops/hour, ruling out corn entirely as it can't achieve the equivalent production even with no area taken by fertilizer production. Unfertilized wheat can produce 28.4 fertilizer/h for a total of 56 cycles.
Watermelon needs 50 plots, leaving 16 plots available for fertilizer production, which themselves need to produce at least 60 cycles of fertilizer/h (more if using fertilizer on fertilizer-producing plants). Mixing in a small amount of hay, fertilizer effectiveness can be increased, but not by enough to overcome a more compact fermenter arrangement as reducing space taken by each fermenter to ~9 plots is enough to nullify the advantage if power consumption is not priced in.