Guide/Petroleum Boiler (2024)

A Petroleum Boiler is a device which is used to create Petroleum directly from Crude Oil, without the use of an Oil Refinery. It utilizes the fact that Crude Oil turns into Petroleum at a temperature of about 401.85 °C.

In relation

3 Oil Wells running full time generate 10 kg of Crude Oil per second, which keeps 1 Oil Refinery and therefore 1 Duplicant fully occupied, wasting 480 W of power and creating 5 kg of Petroleum per second, worth 5 kW of Power.

The theory

Crude oil, if heated up turns into Petroleum at a 1:1 ratio; 10 kg of Crude Oil therefore generate 10 kg of Petroleum for 10 kW power with no Duplicant errand generated.

Perfect mathematical model

Assuming an Oil Well ejects Crude Oil at 91.85 °C, it needs to rise in temperature for 310 °C, for 10 kg/s that is an amount 5,239 kDTU of heat per second (mass times specific heat capacity times temperature difference: 10*1.690*310). But since the generated Petroleum has a higher specific heat capacity it can flow against the new incoming oil, heating the crude oil up while cooling itself down by 297.67 °C (Heat divided by mass and specific heat capacity: 5239/(10*1.76)=297.67°C) from 401.8 5°C to 104.18 °C.

In an imperfect world

Barely transformed Petroleum can, of course, not cause other crude oil to rise in temperature above, but it can come quite close. Therefore only a little bit more heat needs to be injected into the system through in order to push the crude oil over the edge to flash into petroleum.

Advantages

• A Petroleum Boiler converts 100% of Crude Oil mass into Petroleum, while an Oil Refinery converts only 50% (+ 0.9% in Natural Gas).
• It produces no troublesome to deal with Natural Gas.
• Once it's set up, no Duplicant or Player interaction is required.
• It is Water positive in conjunction with Oil Wells if all Petroleum is burnt in Petroleum Generators: 3000 g/s Water -> ~10000 g/s Crude Oil -> ~10000 g/s Petroleum -> ~3750 g/s Polluted Water. If burnt in four Petroleum Generators, it is (approximately) Water neutral and generates 2000 g/s of extra Petroleum.

Disadvantages

• A Petroleum Boiler is resource- and time-intensive to set up; a lot of Raw Minerals will be needed for the Insulated Tiles.
• A high output heat source is required; this is a serious hazard for the Duplicants building the Boiler.

Construction

The components of a Petroleum Boiler are as follows:

• A heat source: Most often the Core or a Volcano with a Magma tank attached. The tank should be made from Obsidian Insulated Tiles to prevent heat leakage and melting of the tiles. When doing this, a device to regulate Magma flow to prevent tile formation and one to remove accumulating Igneous Rock. A Robo-Miner is only used in bad designs that do not prevent tile formation. Alternatively, a Thermo Aquatuner can be used. It will have to be made from Thermium to be able to reach the required 400°C+ temperature without overheating. It also needs to be submerged in Liquid to facilitate sufficient heat transfer.
• The boiler where Crude Oil is heated to turn into Petroleum. It should be made partly from Metal Tiles or Diamond Window Tiles to let heat transfer inside. Diamond Tempshift Plate can then be used to more efficiently transfer heat to the Crude Oil.
• A thermal coupling with a Steel Mechanized Airlock to couple both heat source and boiler and to let heat inside the boiler in a regulated manner.
• A Plumbing system which will let Crude Oil inside the boiler and remove Petroleum from it.
• A heat exchanger, most often a so-called counter-flow heat exchanger, which will preheat the incoming Crude Oil and concurrently cool down the outbound Petroleum. By doing so, it decreases the heat required to power the Petroleum Boiler massively.

Volcano-powered Petroleum Boiler

Disclaimer: this build is considered outdated by the community, and has several flaws that will cause its failure in several possible ways. Use at your own risks.

This is an example of a Volcano powered Petroleum Boiler. It is designed to be able to use even the lowest output Volcanoes as a heat source. The Petroleum Output is 10 kg/s.Note the long heat exchanger which allows sufficient heat transfer between liquids. The Radiant Liquid Pipe material is Gold.Automation settings: FILTER Gate: 20 s Thermo Sensor in Magma chamber: Below 435 °C Thermo Sensor in boiler: Above 405 °C Hydro Sensor: Above 500 kg

This design was created by Francis John on YouTube.

The most notable factor in this design is the simultaneous pre-heating of incoming Crude Oil and cooling of outgoing Petroleum through the U-turns.

• Ultimately though, the heat for the pre-heating still comes from the magma.

• An example of a Petroleum boiler

• The previous design in the Power, …

• … Plumbing, …

• … and Automation overlay.

Step by step construction:

Tips

• Aluminum should definitely be used for a heat exchanger as its high Thermal Conductivity decreases its length significantly in comparison to Gold or Copper.
• A double layer of Insulated Tiles should be used to prevent any heat leakage, especially around hot parts.
• Everything in contact with Magma needs to be made from Steel or Obsidian to prevent (eventual) melting.

Drip Boiler Above Magma-Biome

This set-up is meant for mid-game segments, just after getting Steel and some Plastic, preferably from a Glossy Drecko ranch. It does not use any Volcano, but rather tapping into the Volcanic Biome. This is best done in Spaced Out! and with the default game world setting for the DLC, because the Biome is quicker to reach than in other types of playthroughs.

Petroleum Floats Above Crude Oil

The first critical factor of this set-up is that Petroleum is less dense than Crude Oil. When the Vent releases the packet of Crude Oil, it will automatically displace any Petroleum that is at the Vent - up into the waiting Liquid Pump.

Cooling the Steel Liquid Pump

The other critical factor of this set-up is keeping the pump cool; it will overheat without the heat transfer through the Metal Tile wall around it and the Tempshift Plates beneath its upper half.

The amount of water in the steam pockets next to the pump has to be more than 50 kg to keep the pump around 200 degrees; more water makes the pump cooler.

Advantages

• You don't need to deal with a Volcano; the Volcanic Biome can be safely reached with careful digging and diagonal tile-building.
• Minimal space that has to be sealed in.
• Of course, there is no need for Thermium.
• The breach to the upper strata of the Biome can be sealed in with an Insulated Tile, preferably made of Ceramic.

Disadvantages

• The most significant disadvantage is that higher Petroleum output means exposing the Pump to more just-converted Petroleum; it will be hotter, consequently. Any effective production rate above 5 kg/s of Petroluem will overheat the Pump.
• Starting the drip is a headache; it has to be started just before the Metal Tile has been built over the breach. Doing so too late will have the Tile heating to over a thousand degrees and flash any drip that is below 5 kg.
• Eventually, this will cool the upper substrate of the Volcanic Biome; this will happen in just 20 cycles. At equilibrium, the drip has to be gradually reduced such that output of Petroleum is just 650 g/s - this is slow, and has to be monitored every cycle.
• You need at least three Steam Turbines; two adjacent to the pump, and one more to cool the first two. All of them will be underperforming in power generation.
• Every once in a while - it is rare but of random frequency - a bit of Crude Oil gets pushed up into the Pump and gets sucked, thus introducing Crude Oil into the output line. This can be handled with a liquid filtering system (either with the Filter or a Shut-Off with Liquid Element Sensor), but this takes up space; this may not be feasible if the Magma Biome has inconvenient layouts.

• This is the actual overlay.

• This is the Liquid overlay.

External Links

• A tutorial video on Petroleum Boilers, containing the above example and further ones for Minor Volcanoes and Aluminum piping.