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[Halnoth]

err not quite

It isn't quite charcoal yet unless it has already been completely carbonized as such if you got any methanol at all from burning charcoal it would be miniscule at best. The majority of the methanol you would get would be from slow baking the wood (pyrolysis).

[Reelyanoob]

Looks like Polyethylene can be made from ethanol, thats a good start . Though it's a sort of wimpy polymer, not needing wood is an advantage. I'll add that in.

I found this great PDF file listing many possible ways to make methanol.

Like I hoped, there are possible pathways from ethanol to methanol, e.g steps:-
C2H5OH +3O2 → 2CO2 + 3H20 (burn ethanol)
3H20 → 3H2 + 3O2 (electrolysis)
CO2 + 3H2 → CH3OH + H2O (methanol production)

So i guess I'll leave this in for now, I want to have powered electric dynamos as part of the custom workshops, but might break it down so you have Hydrogen and CO2 tanks as part of the production process. It'd be cool to have Oxygen tanks lying around too for that Sci-Fi feel. I might implement some alternate processes eventually too.

[Deon]

This looks actually neat. Mind me joining the Wasteland/Shadowrun mod with this thing? It would be very helpful.

[Zorbeltuss]

take note; Methanol is liquid form, methane is gaseous form. 

Err, not of the same substance, also Methanol is quite volatile as a liquid, so any one time you won't be able to say that this is just a liquid...
Methanol is the alcohol of methane, as ethanol is the alcohol of ethane, if were just counting alcohols with one group that is, longer chains have more possibilities, usually (2 dimethylpropanol is the only alcohol of 2 dimethylpropane for example, still only if counting those with one alcohol group only).

/Zorbeltuss

[rynait]

Hello,

hmm.  so to reduce the methane or ethane (is gaseous) into liquid, is through alcohol process creating methanol and ethanol. (new lesson for me.  )

methane is organic votaile gas. and in RL naturally occurs from digested plant matter (think cow poo or off gassing from garbage dump).  which is anaerobic (not exposed to air or oxygen) fermentation. I do not know how much (volume wise) methane is produced this way.

 Termite man: sip-ah ... delicious cow poo methanol (probably a trade name, like grape ethanol is wine).

I checked wiki and see that using charcoal to produce methane is viable process, but is not popular method due to lot of 'energy' and labor. Here is the process; burn charcoal, capture carbon dioxide and subsitute 2 oxygen with hydrogen (probably need 4 times the volume of captured carbon dioxide), resulting in  methanol/methane (I presume same volume as captured carbon dioxide). I point out that Hydrogen extraction today is expensive process (either electrolysis of water or through capturing off-gassing of a chemical reaction.)  Since we are interested in methanol, I am not sure how charcoal is untilized to produce methanol.

the easiest methane production preferred in industries; is extracted from natural gas. NG is reportedly to contain greater than 60 percent methane and proprane is reported to contain greater than 70 to 80 percent methane.

the pyrolosis process of wood (turning into charcoal) makes producer gas, tar and impurities including crescote. I only know that producer gas is a hydrocarbon based gas. I am checking wiki on what producer gas composistion is.

maybe a special workshop that takes either charcoal or refuse (vermins?) and produce methane?

I am not a chemist, but am 45 years old recalling my high school chemistry... sigh, now i feel old.

R

edit:
 found reference on wood gas.  the hydrocarbon composistion (by captured volume) is
Nitrogen N2: 50.9%
Carbon monoxide CO: 27.0%
Hydrogen H2: 14.0%
Carbon dioxide CO2: 4.5%
Methane CH4: 3.0%
Oxygen O2: 0.6%

in the same reference states same volume of nitrogen was present before or after pyrolosis.  3% methane is small.

[Reelyanoob]

This looks actually neat. Mind me joining the Wasteland/Shadowrun mod with this thing? It would be very helpful.

Heh. I actually had Shadowrun in mind when I started this.

Thx again everyone for the input

[Alternatecash]

Glorious! Absolutely adding this to my personal blend of DF.

[Jake]

I am truly at a loss for words. You have spent hours of your free time creating a massively complicated and more-or-less scientifically accurate mod that enables players to dress their standard-fantasy-issue dwarves in PVC, acrylic and Kevlar. This is simultaneously an awe-inspiring achievement worthy of monuments and an act of total lunacy... or in other words, the single dwarfiest thing I've seen since that total-conversion using nothing but creatures inspired by They Might Be Giants lyrics.

[smakemupagus]

This sounds awesome, I hope you don't mind if I borrow (credited of course) some of your ideas for my own projects?  I've been thinking of such a thing but didn't remember enough chemistry to get it off the ground. 

Cheers

Also

>>  Posted by: Jake
>>  that total-conversion using nothing but creatures inspired by They Might Be Giants lyrics.

[Putnam]

My science mod is a newer, updated mod with similar goals to this one.

[Reelya]

As far as plastics and the clothes you can make go, this mod is still up to date, nothing new has been added as far as reaction-wizardry to the base game, I'm pretty sure everything in here will still work fine.

Putnam, i see your mod is mainly about metals? i deliberately avoided adding any metals into this mod due to the large number of other mods which expand metallurgy. This one is designed to be a stand-alone new synthetics industry, so you could pretty much add the whole thing to yours, just change the Tokens for HCL etc, and it'll connect up with your materials.

smakemupagus: you're free to take this stuff. I didn't adjust the weight, toughness of the Kevlar etc, it's based on Iron. If you make any adjustments to anything, let me know and i'll make a new version with you in the credits.

I did consider making a lot more materials in the production pipeline, and originally had many more steps, but that all seemed counterproductive in the end to "playing dwarf fortress". I also considered, but in the end didn't make the steps need fuel. The main reason was that this produced base-level clothing and furniture, and making all that need fuel would raise the question of "why would you bother?". I'm thinking to add pigments to the plastic though, to allow for a full set of colored furnitures.

i do like the idea of magma-based plastics industry, but with the current state of the game, it's more-or-less superfluous to the existing production system. I guess i could make a magma-powered plastic clothing workshop that produces 10 items at a time or something

[smakemupagus]

Cool, I'll check out yours too, Putnam, I've been meaning to anyway

[Putnam]

The [AUTOMATIC] token works wonders for certain processes that require multiple steps.

[Reelya]

if they're automatic then they don't affect gameplay, so you need another justification on why they exist.

[GreatWyrmGold]

No, if they're automatic you don't need to tell dwarves to go do them.