Ore Processing

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Description

Mekanism adds various tiers of ore processing for better ingot yields from Raw and Silk-Touch'ed Ore.

Each tier use a specific machine to process the raw ore into a product—ingots, dusts, clumps, shards or crystals. The product of each tier is then processed by the machines of the previous tiers.

Ore processing flowchart (Mekanism v10)

Simplified version of flowchart

Tier Comparison

The following table represents the input:output ratios for Silk-Touch'ed ore.

	Chemical Dissolution Chamber	Chemical Washer	Chemical Crystallizer	Chemical Injection Chamber	Purification Chamber	Crusher	Enrichment Chamber	Energized Smelter	Yield	Multiplier
Additional Input	100mb Sulfuric Acid/Ore	5mb Water/1mb Dirty Slurry	100mb Sulfuric Acid/3	200mb Hydrogen Chloride/each	200mb Oxygen/each
Tier 0								1 Raw Ore	1 Ingot	×1
Tier 1							1 Ore	2 Dusts	2 Ingots	×2
Tier 2					1 Ore	3 Clumps	3 Dirty Dusts	3 Dusts	3 Ingots	×3
Tier 3				1 Ore	4 Shards	4 Clumps	4 Dirty Dusts	4 Dusts	4 Ingots	×4
Tier 4	1 ore	2000mb Dirty Slurry	2000mb Clean Slurry	10 Crystals	10 Shards	10 Clumps	10 Dirty Dusts	10 Dusts	10 Ingots	×5.00

Tier 0

This is the traditional process of directly smelting raw ores into ingots. The output of processed materials is the same between the vanilla Furnace and Mekanism's Energized Smelter. Notably, the Energized Smelter can accept upgrades to its efficiency and speed, as well as accept power from Mekanism's various generators.
In this example, power is provided by a Heat Generator "waterlogged" with lava in order to generate passive energy.

1 Raw Ore → Energized Smelter → 1 Ingot

Basic Tier 0 Setup

Tier 1

New machines on this tier:

Enrichment Chamber

This tier doubles ingot yield by pre-processing the raw ores in an Enrichment Chamber before smelting into ingots.

1 Silk Touch Ore → Enrichment Chamber → 2 Dusts → Energized Smelter → 2 Ingots

Basic Tier 1 Setup

Tier 2

New machines on this tier:

This tier triples ingot yield for Silk-Touch'ed ores, or doubles the yield for standard raw ores. It starts by processing raw ores in the Purification Chamber. This machine is the first introduced in the ore processing pipeline that uses an additional input component as a part of processing its ore. In this case, the chamber uses Oxygen. From there, the processed items pass through the Crusher, then the Enrichment Chamber and are finally smelted into ingots.

Raw Ore (Raw or Silk Touch'ed) + Oxygen → Purification Chamber → 2 or 3 Clumps
Clumps → Crusher → Dirty Dusts → Enrichment Chamber → Dusts → Energized Smelter → 2 or 3 Ingots

Oxygen is created by pumping water into an Electrolytic Separator using an Electric Pump.

Tip: You can use a Gas-Burning Generator to recycle the Hydrogen produced as a byproduct of this process back to energy.

Basic Tier 2 Setup

Tier 3

New machines on this tier:

This tier quadruples ingot yield. It uses the Thermal Evaporation Plant multi-block structure, Chemical Injection Chamber, and all machines from the previous tier.

The steps of the process for this tier are as follows:

Silk Touch Ore + Hydrogen Chloride → Chemical Injection Chamber → 4 Shards
4 Shards + Oxygen → Purification Chamber → 4 Clumps
4 Clumps → Crusher → 4 Dirty Dusts → Enrichment Chamber → 4 Dusts → Energized Smelter → 4 Ingots

The chain to make Hydrogen Chloride is self-sustaining, and breaks into 3 individual loops:

Water → Electric Pump → Thermal Evaporation Plant → Brine → Electrolytic Separator → Sodium and Chlorine
Salt → Chemical Oxidizer → Gaseous Brine → Rotary Condensentrator → Brine → Electrolytic Separator → Sodium and Chlorine
Hydrogen (from water electrolysis) and Chlorine → Chemical Infuser → Hydrogen Chloride

Simplified Tier 3 Setup

The system pictured above is simplified down to the minimum to achieve this tier—the hydrogen chloride production loop pictured does not reclaim sodium, but instead dumps it. The head for the system is provided by a Resistive Heater calibrated to 400 FE/t. The optimal value power draw for a heater will vary based on the temperature of the biome that the Thermal Evaporation Plant is built in.