Build Chemical Plant

Chemical Processing Plant

The Chemical Plant is the large Chemical Reactor: every Reactor Column inside it runs one chemical reaction at the same time, and the whole plant can run large processes that no single machine can.

• Parallel reactions: each complete column (three Reactor Columns stacked on the floor of the interior) is one lane that runs every recipe of the Chemical Reactor: electrolysis, fermentation, ethylene, polymer, silicon, ammonia, nitric acid, liquefaction. Up to 16 columns count. All lanes share the plant's tanks and its energy buffer (4,000,000 E).
• Large processes: fast ammonia synthesis, cracking plant oil into ethylene and ethanol, and ore leaching: one ore and 250 mB Nitric Acid give 3 dust and the by-product, for every metal that has an ore and a dust. A large process needs a number of columns and runs alone on the whole plant: when one can start, the running reactions finish, no new ones start, and then it runs.
• Tanks: one fluid input, one fluid output, two gas inputs and two gas outputs, 64,000 mB each. Gases go through Pipster pipes.
• The fill level of every column shows through its glass.

The example below is 7 × 6 × 7 with four columns (on every second floor cell, so you can walk between them). Inputs are on the left wall, outputs on the right, the Energy Hatch is in the middle of the roof.

Rules

• Size: 7 to 11 wide, 6 to 10 high, 7 to 11 deep.
• Frame (edges and corners): Industrial Casing only (or blocks in quantaworks:multiblock/casing).
• Walls: Industrial Casing, Industrial Viewport, plus the controller and ports.
• Ports:
  • Item Input Port / Item Output Port.
  • Fluid Input Port / Fluid Output Port.
  • Gas Input Port / Gas Output Port.
  • Energy Hatch (tier 2 – 5): energy in, at most 4.
• Inside: air and Reactor Columns. Reactor Columns stand on the floor of the interior and are exactly three blocks high (layers 1 to 3 inside).
• Required: at least one complete column.
• Controller: the Chemical Plant Controller sits in a wall and faces out; the block right behind it must be inside the plant.

Running it

Pipe the inputs into the ports, pull the products out of the output ports and connect energy. The screen shows energy, the six tanks, the items and how many columns are busy ("Columns busy: 2 / 4"). While a large process waits for the columns, it says so.

Common error messages

Message	What to do
The controller must sit in a wall, front facing out	Put the controller into a wall so that the block behind it is inside the plant.
Structure too small ((size)) / Structure too large or not closed near (position)	Keep within 7 – 11 × 6 – 10 × 7 – 11 and close every wall.
Missing parts: reactor_column:3	A column is not complete: stack exactly three Reactor Columns on the floor.
Wrong block at (position) (expected: air|reactor_column)	Reactor Columns only on layers 1 – 3 of the interior, nothing else inside.
Too many ports of one kind: energy_input:4 allowed	At most 4 Energy Hatches.
Port not allowed here: (position) ((port type))	Energy Output Ports do not work here.

Sight glass

Every wall block that is not on an edge may be Industrial Viewport (or any block a data pack puts into the tag quantaworks:multiblock/glass) instead of the casing. The plant works the same, and through the glass you see what happens inside while it runs. The example below has Industrial Viewport in its front.

Step by step

The example below is 7 wide, 6 high and 7 deep. The example forms as shown (checked in the game when the pictures were taken).

Each step shows the plant from the front left after one more layer is placed (from the bottom up), and a top-down map of that layer: the back of the plant at the top, the front with the controller at the bottom. The letters match the parts lists.

All parts of the example:

	Key	Block	Count
	A	Industrial Casing	167
	B	Industrial Viewport	19
	G	Reactor Column	12
	C	Chemical Plant Controller	1
	K	Energy Hatch (Tier 2)	1
	F	Fluid Input Port	1
	H	Fluid Output Port	1
	I	Gas Input Port	1
	J	Gas Output Port	1
	D	Item Input Port	1
	E	Item Output Port	1

Step 1: Layer 1

Parts in this step: Industrial Casing (A) ×49

Step 2: Layer 2

Parts in this step: Chemical Plant Controller (C) ×1, Fluid Input Port (F) ×1, Fluid Output Port (H) ×1, Gas Input Port (I) ×1, Gas Output Port (J) ×1, Industrial Casing (A) ×13, Industrial Viewport (B) ×4, Item Input Port (D) ×1, Item Output Port (E) ×1, Reactor Column (G) ×4

Step 3: Layers 3–4 (identical)

Place this layer 2 times on top of each other.

Parts in this step: Industrial Casing (A) ×38, Industrial Viewport (B) ×10, Reactor Column (G) ×8

Step 4: Layer 5

Parts in this step: Industrial Casing (A) ×19, Industrial Viewport (B) ×5

Step 5: Layer 6

Parts in this step: Energy Hatch (Tier 2) (K) ×1, Industrial Casing (A) ×48

Finished

In operation

Tips

• More columns help only with many inputs at once: one reaction still takes as long as in the Chemical Reactor.
• A large process needs the columns named in its recipe; JEI shows the number.