DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
DEVELOPMENT OF THE PYRRHUS PETRUSITE REFINERY
When our compatriots at the Department of Natural Engineering discovered that the gases emitted by naturally-occurring smoker towers was a rich source of Petrusite, this presented an enormous opportunity but also many challenges.
It fell to our department to find ways to harvest the raw Petrusite efficiently and then refine it so it could be used to generate energy. This would require different solutions to those previously employed for the conventional mining and refining of Petrusite ore, most notably at Tharsis.
The first step was the development of electrostatic plates which could be used to extract the Petrusite from the gases rising inside the smoker towers. However, the amounts of Petrusite required demanded that this technology form part of a production line on an industrial scale. (Corinthmetall was initially contracted to manufacture 500 recyclable plates.)
Similarly, the refinery itself would need to be massive. For this reason, and for close proximity to the Arc Batteries the refinery was primarily intended to supply, the decision was taken to construct the facility off-shore. This also gave ready access to coolant for the reactor in the form of seawater piped directly from the bay.
But the choice of location made the logistical problem of transporting large volumes of hazardously charged plates from smoker tower to refinery all the more challenging. Various solutions were considered, including bulk shipment by air, sea or a hybrid of the two, but these were rejected.
Instead, Stahl Arms proposed the use of small, lightweight drones to ferry plates by air direct from the smoker tower to the refinery. The drones would be modified from proven military models, robust and cheaply produced. Their use would eliminate practically all manual handling of electrostatic plates from the Petrusite extraction process.
With this solution in place, construction began at once on the Pyrrhus Refinery and was completed in November 2358.
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Institute of Science and Technology