Kovarex enrichment process

Kovarex enrichment process

Edit

Recipe
60 + 40 + 5 → 41 + 2
Total raw
60 + 40 + 5
Prototype type	recipe
Internal name	kovarex-enrichment-process
Required technologies
Produced by

Kovarex enrichment process is a crafting recipe to reprocess uranium-238 and uranium-235 in a centrifuge. It converts U-238 to U-235 at a 3:1 ratio.

Purpose

The kovarex enrichment process is useful because uranium (ore) processing is probability-based and players cannot directly alter the probabilities. 10 uranium ore is processed into either 1 U-235 with a probability of 0.007 (0.7% chance) or 1 U-238 with a probability of 0.993 (99.3% chance), leading to an expected output of 1 U-235 per ~143 crafting cycles, or about a 1:142 ratio of U-235 to U-238.

U-235 is used to produce uranium fuel cells, nuclear fuel, and atomic bombs, but the probability distribution of uranium processing can lead to slow production of U-235 and a large surplus of U-238. Kovarex enrichment process enables faster, deterministic production of U-235 from surplus U-238.

Note that converting all U-238 into U-235 is inadvisable, since U-238 is an ingredient of uranium fuel cells, uranium rounds magazines, uranium cannon shells, and explosive uranium cannon shells.

Catalyst

Kovarex enrichment process is a catalytic recipe, producing and consuming the same items. The net effect of each crafting cycle consumes 3 U-238 and produces 1 U-235. The remaining 40 U-235 and 2 U-238 are treated as catalysts for the net production.

Productivity bonuses only apply to the net production, not the catalysts. When productivity generates extra output, it generates 1 U-235 and 0 U-238 — not 41 and 2.

Trivia

• The Kovarex enrichment process is named after Michal Kovařík, lead designer of Factorio and co-owner of Wube, whose online nick is kovarex (which he usually spells lowercase). [1]
• With a 60 second crafting time, kovarex enrichment process is one of the slowest recipes in the game. Even when fully beaconed with all legendary entities and modules, the centrifuge's automatic insertion limit will stay at 2 crafts: 80 U-235 and 10 U-238
• In the real world, uranium-235 is the most common fissile isotope of uranium and makes up approximately 0.72% of naturally-occurring uranium, with the other 99.28% being uranium-238. The in-game representation is thus highly accurate in this regard. Uranium is commonly enriched in centrifuges by merely separating isotopes to increase the percentage of ²³⁵U for use in fission reactions. As the Kovarex enrichment process produces more fissile material than its input, the process is more akin to plutonium breeding. Reddit discussion: Kovarex enrichment is plutonium breeding… right?
• Uranium munitions are made from depleted uranium, a byproduct of uranium enrichment, which is mostly ²³⁸U whose natural admixture of the ²³⁵U isotope has been lowered even further through the enrichment process. Depleted uranium is minimally radioactive and the reason for its use in munitions is its very high density and other mechanical properties, not radioactivity/toxicity.

History

• 0.17.0:
  • Can be used with productivity modules once again.
  • Use with productivity modules now gives correct amount of bonus items.

• 0.15.2:
  • No longer usable with productivity modules.

• 0.15.0:
  • Introduced

See also

• Uranium processing