Filter (Pollutant)

The pollutant filter catches Pollutant. It fits any gas filter slot – the Filtration, the Portable Air Scrubber and the suit. Its reserve starts at 100 and drops while filtering.

Pollutant is toxic: from 0.5 kPa partial pressure you get a warning, from 1 kPa you take damage. At 100 kPa room pressure that is a share of just 0.5 % and 1 %. A Gas Sensor shows the share as RatioPollutant; multiply it by Pressure and you have the partial pressure.

Where it comes from:

• Burning methane: 2 mol of methane and 1 mol of oxygen give 3 mol of pollutant and 6 mol of carbon dioxide. Every gas flame burning on volatiles produces it.
• Smelting: many ores release pollutant when smelted.
• Outside air: on Vulcan the air consists of about 26 % pollutant according to the world data, on Mars of a good 0.6 %.

What to do with the filtered gas: the simplest option is to vent it outside through a passive vent, far from intake lines. If you want to store it, a property from the gas data helps: pollutant turns liquid from just 1,800 kPa and below 433.9 K, i.e. at room temperature. As a liquid it takes up much less room – but in a gas pipe that much liquid can cause damage.

Lifetime: every 145 ticks in which it actually catches pollutant cost 1 point of reserve; 100 points last a good two hours of continuous use. The filter is made in the Hydraulic Pipe Bender; the medium version lasts about five times, the heavy one about twenty times as long. The catalytic filter (about eighty times) only comes from the trader Cosmic Curiosities. How to dispose of waste gases is covered in Filtration: separating gases, changing filters, getting rid of waste gases.