Molybdenum

Molybdenum

Molybdenum is a light overhaul of the oil chain. Advanced oil processing becomes a distillation tower that splits crude oil into four cuts, which you clean over a molybdenum catalyst and convert into each other; basic oil processing stays as it is. Molybdenum and rhenium come out of your copper ore and go into catalysts, molybdenum steel and superalloy, which late-game recipes require.

Factorio 2.1.23 or later. Space Age and all other mods are optional. Recommended: Valves for overflow valves and Flare Stack for getting rid of surplus fluids.

How it plays

1. Basic oil processing stays. 100 crude oil still makes 45 petroleum gas in an oil refinery. Use it for small batches.
2. Split the crude. At advanced oil processing, the distillation tower splits 100 crude oil and 50 water into 25 sour gas, 35 naphtha, 30 kerosene and 35 gas oil.
3. Clean the cuts.

• Sour gas is washed into petroleum gas and hydrogen sulfide.
• Naphtha is reformed over a molybdenum catalyst into light oil, hydrogen and a little petroleum gas.
• With that hydrogen, gas oil is hydrotreated into heavy oil and kerosene into rocket kerosene.

1. Run the catalyst loop. Reforming hands its catalyst back coked. A furnace burns the coke off and 95 % come back, so you belt the catalysts between the reformers and the furnaces.
2. Win molybdenum and rhenium. Flotation pulls molybdenite out of copper ore with a splash of naphtha, and 48 of every 50 copper ore come back. Roasting gives molybdenum oxide and roaster gas; scrubbing that gas gives sulfuric acid and rhenium liquor, which hydrogen or hydrogen sulfide turns into rhenium. One rhenium takes about 1,250 copper ore through flotation, or 625 with pressure leaching.
3. Convert. Kerosene cracking comes with advanced oil processing. The oil conversion research adds hydrocracking (gas oil into kerosene, naphtha and petroleum gas), slurry hydrocracking (heavy oil into light oil and naphtha), steam cracking (naphtha into petroleum gas and hydrogen) and alkylation (petroleum gas and sulfuric acid back into light oil).
4. Upgrade to rhenium. Rhenium reforming makes 54 light oil from 40 naphtha instead of 33. Each reformer keeps 20 rhenium catalysts in circulation, and 99 % survive each cleaning.

Petroleum gas per 100 crude oil, everything cracked: basic oil processing 45, advanced oil processing 92 (vanilla: 97.5), with oil conversion 107, with rhenium reforming and pressure leaching 125.

Buildings

• Distillation tower (5×5). It can't be rotated, so all six connections stay visible: crude oil goes in on the west side and water on the east; sour gas and naphtha come out at the bottom of the west and east sides, kerosene and gas oil from the bottom edge. Press R on a placed tower, or H while holding it, to swap west and east. A vapour plume and an amber glow show when it is working. It is built from 40 steel, 20 stone bricks, 10 advanced circuits, 4 pumps and 10 pipes, plus magnesia, cadmium-plated hardware and tellurium copper when those mods are installed.
• Gas turbine (3×5, its own research after superalloy). It makes 5 MW from refinery fuels, refuses crude oil, heavy oil and other fuels, and needs air, so not on space platforms. Fuel values per unit: hydrogen 150 kJ, petroleum gas and sour gas 400 kJ, naphtha 500 kJ, light oil 600 kJ, kerosene 700 kJ, rocket kerosene 900 kJ, gas oil 500 kJ. Gases burn cleanest, liquids pollute more, and raw sour gas pollutes three times as much as petroleum gas. One turbine runs on the sour gas from about 50 crude oil per second.

Everything else runs in oil refineries, chemical plants, furnaces and assembling machines.

Hydrogen sulfide and sour gas

• 10 hydrogen sulfide make 1 sulfur, or with 10 water 15 sulfuric acid, without iron.
• Sulfiding: 2 molybdenum oxide, 1 stone and 10 hydrogen sulfide make 2 catalysts. Without hydrogen sulfide, an assembler makes 1.
• 50 rhenium liquor and 20 hydrogen sulfide make 1 rhenium, instead of using 20 hydrogen.
• 20 sour gas and 20 steam make 35 hydrogen and 5 hydrogen sulfide.
• Sour gas can also go straight into the gas turbine: simpler, but dirtier than washing it first.

What the metals are for

• Molybdenum steel (5 steel and 1 molybdenum oxide make 5, or 6 with magnesium) is required in flying robot frames, artillery turrets and wagons, power armor, exoskeletons, combat shotguns, cannon shells, explosive cannon shells, tanks, nuclear reactors, heat exchangers, centrifuges and the gas turbine. Nuclear power, uranium processing and the tank therefore come after advanced oil processing.
• Superalloy (1 rhenium, 4 molybdenum oxide and 15 steel make 20) goes into the rocket silo, every rocket part and the gas turbine. Its research is a prerequisite of the rocket silo and uses the same science packs. A rocket launch costs 10 rhenium.
• Rhenium also goes into satellites (5 each) and rhenium catalysts.
• Molybdenum oxide also makes catalysts and the heating elements of electric furnaces (2 oxide, half the steel).
• Molybdenite gives 50 % more lubricant, feeds slurry hydrocracking and catalytic coal liquefaction (35 light oil instead of 20), and greases the spidertron's legs (20).

Conventional steam turbines replace 30 gears with 15 molybdenum steel for their hot-service rotor, retaining 20 gears, 50 copper and 20 pipes, plus Cadmium's five plated hardware when installed. Space Age's planetary starter turbines keep their existing recipe.

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