.. _basic-elements:

Basic Elemental Manufacture
===========================

This page is a guide to the large scale manufacturing of the basic elements that are used widely
in the industrial chemistry within the modpack. "Basic" elements refers to non-metallic single 
elements that are used in larger compounds.

.. figure:: screenshots/chlorine-production.avif

    A chlorine production plant, one of the basic elements.

.. _el-hydrogen:

Hydrogen
--------

Hydrogen is used primarily for cracking petrochemical products during hydro-refining. There are two
main ways of producing hydrogen on a mass scale:

- Dirt water, distilled water, or salt walter electrolysis produces hydrogen and oxygen/chlorine. 
  This is a very slow and thus energy intensive process which doesn't produce much output for the 
  time it takes but is otherwise the most consistent source of hydrogen in the very early game.

- Steam reforming of methane. This requires a methane source, obviously; refinery gas is a good one
  (see :ref:`fossil-fuel-power` for more information) and produces a lot of hydrogen very quickly. 
  You can just void the carbon dioxide like we do in real life.

Hydrogen is also produced in small amounts from various metallurgical and miscellaneous 
petrochemical processes, but this is nowhere near enough to satisfy demand for hydrocracking.

.. _el-oxygen:

Oxygen
------

Oxygen is used extensively for metallurgy, roasting, and organic chemistry oxidation reactions. 
There's a few ways to get it:

- Dirt water or distilled wateer electrolysis. Like before, this is a very slow and energy intensive
  but unlike for hydrogen it's not even worth using in the very early game.

- Air centrifuging or liquid air distillation. Again, this is very slow and energy intensive; 
  whilst in the real world, this is how pure-ish oxygen is manufactured, we have better ways.

- Electrolysis of silicon dioxide. SiO2 can be made by centrifuging flint dust; flint dust comes
  from flint, which can be made from sifting gravel; and, of course, gravel can be made from 
  cobblestone. 

  The leftover silicon can be used for silicon boules. This is the easiest and most practical way
  to get massive amounts of oxygen, albeit a bit involved for the early game requiring five separate
  steps.

.. _el-sulfur:

Sulfur
------

Elemental sulfur is not that useful, outside of curing rubber and making fertiliser, but its 
derivatives such as sulfuric acid are very useful throughout the entire game.

- Small amounts of hydrogen sulfide are produced from the desulfurisation of raw petrochemicals. 
  You will want to electrolyse it to get hydrogen back in a closed loop reaction, producing 
  elemental sulfur as a byproduct. In the real world, this is where most sulfur comes from.

  This isn't consistent enough to base your entire production around, but it produces enough to be
  worth collecting.

- Likewise, small amounts of sulfur dioxide will be produced as a side effect of roasting materials.

- Nether Air can be centrifuged to get sulfur dioxide, and liquid Nether Air can be distilled to get
  even more sulfur dioxide.

- Coal gas veins from the Nether can be distilled into coal tar, which can be distilled into 
  hydrogen sulfide. 

- Sulfuric wastewater from the washing of sulfur-bearing minerals is a good source of sulfur
  that can produce a lot of H2S.

.. _el-chlorine:

Chlorine
--------

Chlorine is a basic chemical building block for a lot of chemicals including hydrochloric acid
and the organochloric compounds. The best way of getting chlorine is from the electrolysis of
salt, which comes from centrifuging stone dust (as a byproduct of ore washing) or from centrifuging
salt water (which comes from evaporating dirt water).

.. _el-fluorine:

Fluorine
--------

The primary usage for fluorine is essentially for polytetrafluoroethylene for multiblock 
manufacture. It only has one viable source - flourite - which is made from the electrolysis of
fluorite. Fluorite can be found as an ore sorting byproduct, or by reacting calcium hydroxide
with fluoric wastewater.