Codex Processing Chemical Reactor

Chemical Reactor

The Chemical Reactor is the all-round machine of the chemistry: it makes silicon, plastic, ammonia, nitric acid, liquid nitrogen, ethanol, yellowcake and lithium carbonate. It is a tier II machine and takes items, a fluid and gases at the same time.

Property	Value
Tier	2
Energy buffer	400,000 E
Max. input	16,000 E/t
Input slots	2
Output slots	2
Upgrade slots	3
Recipe type	Chemical Reaction

The Chemical Reactor window: 1 input slots, 2 progress, 3 output slots, 4 upgrade slots, 5 energy and tank bars, 6 value, status and redstone lines, 7 buttons (redstone mode, telemetry, codex).

What it does

The reactor has room for everything a reaction may need:

• In: two item slots, one fluid tank and two gas tanks.
• Out: two item slots, one fluid tank and two gas tanks.

When the inputs of a recipe are there, a run takes them all at once, uses energy every tick and puts the products into the output slots and tanks. Each fluid or gas goes into an output tank that already holds it, or into an empty one.

Recipes

In	Out	E/t	Ticks
500 mB Nitrogen, 1500 mB Hydrogen	1000 mB Ammonia	800	400
500 mB Ethanol	500 mB Ethylene	300	100
1000 mB Bio Slurry	500 mB Ethanol	200	200
1000 mB Nitrogen	100 mB Liquid Nitrogen	2000	200
any Lithium Dust, 250 mB Water	Lithium Carbonate	30	160
500 mB Ammonia, 1000 mB Oxygen	500 mB Nitric Acid	600	200
1000 mB Ethylene	Polymer Sheet	400	120
any Nether Quartz, 2 × any Coal Dust	Silicon	500	160
any Uranium Dust, 250 mB Water	Yellowcake	30	160

The power differs a lot from recipe to recipe: liquefying nitrogen needs far more than washing yellowcake. Plan the energy for the most expensive recipe you run.

The chains

• Plastic: bio slurry from the Plant Processor ferments into ethanol, ethanol becomes ethylene, ethylene becomes Polymer Sheets.
• Silicon: quartz and coal dust become Silicon; the Crystallizer grows it into a boule for wafers.
• Nitrogen chemistry: nitrogen from the Air Separator and hydrogen from the Electrolyzer become ammonia; ammonia and oxygen become nitric acid. Nitrogen alone is liquefied into liquid nitrogen.
• Energy: uranium dust becomes yellowcake for the nuclear fuel, lithium dust becomes lithium carbonate for battery cells, each with water.

Energy and upgrades

The reactor takes energy on every side, from a Pipster cable, a generator next to it or any FE or Team Reborn Energy source. When the buffer holds less than one tick of the current run, the run waits and keeps its progress.

The three upgrade slots at the right edge take one kind each:

Upgrade	Up to	Effect per upgrade
Speed Upgrade	2	half the time, 2.8 times the power
Efficiency Upgrade	3	0.85 times the power
Parallel Upgrade	2	2, then 4 copies per run, 1.25 times the power per doubling on top

Upgrades count from the next run. The buffer and the maximum input grow by the same factor as the power. A parallel run only starts as many copies as the inputs hold and the outputs and tanks have room for.

Automation

• Pipes and hoppers can put items into the two input slots from every side, but only items that a recipe uses.
• Fluid and gas pipes can fill the input tanks from every side, but only with fluids and gases that a recipe uses.
• Items can only be taken out of the output slots, fluids and gases only out of the output tanks.
• Upgrades can be inserted the same way; each slot takes only its own upgrade.
• When an output is full, the finished run waits until there is room.

Redstone

The R button in the top right corner switches the redstone mode: always runs, runs with a signal, or runs without a signal.

What the status line says

Status	Meaning
Idle – waiting for inputs	No recipe fits what is in the slots and tanks.
Running	A run is in progress.
Waiting for energy	The buffer is too low; the progress is kept.
Output full – take the products out	The products of the finished run do not fit.
Paused by redstone	The redstone mode stops the machine. A Grid Monitor that pauses machines shows the same text.

Building it

The Chemical Reactor needs a Machine Frame, a Copper Coil, two buckets, steel plates and glass.

	Glass
Bucket		Bucket	→ Chemical Reactor

When you break it, it keeps the contents of its tanks, its energy and its redstone mode; items, upgrades and the items of a running job drop.

In the world

While it runs, the stirrer turns, bubbles pop on top, the brew bubbles now and then like a brewing stand, and the machine gives off a little light.

Tip

One reactor per reaction The reactor runs whatever recipe fits first. For a steady chain, give each reaction its own reactor and feed it only its own inputs; the Chemical Plant later runs many reactions in parallel.