GregTech 6/Ore Processing

Getting useful crafting materials out of the world-generated Ore Blocks in GregTech 6 has become less complicated than it was in GregTech 5, but more optional side paths have been added. This document details how processing chains evolve from the manual 'forge age' through to MV tier 'electrical age', and finally contains a reference listing of byproducts by ore and refinery process.

Forge Age
Manual processing of Ores offers little in the way of choice, nor of bonus products. One crushes raw ore with the (perhaps even in the mine, to avoid making quite so many picks), washes, and then smelts it.

Using the filled with liquid Mercury can guarantee specific dusts while washing some ores; a matching amount of Mercury is consumed in this process. Tossing the crushed ore into a full of fresh Water will also wash it while having a chance to produce each of a Tiny Purified Ore, a Tiny Dust, and a Nugget of every byproduct listed below for that ore. It is a small chance, so getting all 24 will basically never happen, but one could get a dust ore and nugget of the same material from a single crushed ore being washed, or get a sample of every byproduct at the same moment because they are independent chances. More likely, a single byproduct or none will be returned.

I recommend piping water into the Cauldron. A Cover immersed in the local River Biome for infinite water removes much of the tedium from this process.

Sand and Gravel Ore blocks must be put through a instead of being crushed and washed. They are doubled, and have a good chance of getting the first listed major byproduct along with lower chances of the second and third in order.

Steam Age
Machine processing starts with doing the same thing better, and automatically. Try to get a to double the Ores as it crushes the blocks. The only makes Tiny Purified Ore byproducts, but is 3% for a Tiny Crushed Ore (nine rolls per full Ore) in each of the eight byproduct output slots. If the material has fewer byproduct varieties listed, the other slots are filled by starting at the begging of the list again, and again, and again until all eight have a material variety. The waste Sluice Juice can have useful materials extracted from it too; though getting the perfect power into a Centrifuge to do so is challenging at this tech level.

The and  are just automating the Mercury Wash and Sifting steps as they were done in the ; they have no improvement in material recovery. Except, that is, for the ability to use Hydrofluoric Acid (HF) to refine Coal-like ores with three chances of 50% getting a Tiny Refined Graphite Ore bonus.

A major option for every ore opens with the. This machine can process a Purified Ore into a unit Dust and three Tiny Refined Ores, one each of the three major byproducts. For those materials with fewer byproducts, the last one listed is copied into the remaining slots. This process does increase the total material return, but sacrifices primary ore to make the byproducts (the only process in GregTech 6 to do so). A Centrifuge can also be used to break down some ores into component minerals at a better recovery rate than smelting directly; this often requires a tiered-up machine.

Late game Options
Although nuclear power has not been implemented in GregTech 6 yet, Isotopes of Lithium, Carbon, Cobalt, Uranium, Plutonium, and Americium are present. It takes a Titanium or Tungstensteel tier Centrifuge to separate the Refined Ore into a unit Dust and eight chances of 27% (split between) Tiny Dust for each enriched isotope. This process actually loses material on average - unlike every other one mentioned in this guide.

Low Voltage
With electricity, more optional path open. The begins to replace smelting as the destination for many ores as it not only has a higher recovery rate of the primary material, but actually recovers all the other chemically bound materials as well. Many minerals have a minimum voltage that will require MV or even HV tier electrolysis. Electrolysis can also be used to process some byproduct chemicals, such as the six Manganese Chloride (MnCl2) Small Dust from Hydrochloric Acid (HCl) bathing to Refine any Purified Ore with Pyrolusite as a byproduct.

Persulfates in Water solution can be used instead of Mercury to wash some Crushed Ores and get a specific Dust byproduct. It takes LV Electrolysis to convert the Bisulfate waste product of Hydrochloric or Nitric Acid production into this useful material.

processing will Refine a Purified Ore while pulling out two (eighteen Tiny) Refined Ores, at 6% chance, of each byproduct that does not share the magnetic character of the primary ore. These are tabulated below for reference.

Medium Voltage
Now it is possible to recover the Vitriols and Chloro-Acids in the. These corrosive liquids contain additional byproduct metals from Refining Pure Ore in a of Sulfuric Acid or Aqua Regia; gasses are also produced. Once electrolyzed at 70, 84, 126, or 238 EU/t, the remaining materials can be re-processed into the original acid - often as a closed loop. Such acid soaking always has three 50% chances to produce a Tiny Refined Ore byproduct in addition to the liquids and gasses; Sulfuric acid's byproducts are more of the original ore.



Geochemistry
Most Ores in GregTech are complex chemical assemblages, similar to real life. The processes discussed above guide the ore toward a single mineral and single chemical composition, while often producing small amounts of byproduct ores.

E : Can be smelt in a Furnace or Oven.

F : This flammable material can be used as furnace fuel.

† : Hydrochloric Acid (HCl) Bath of the Purified Ore will produce MnCl2 dust.

‡ : Hydrofluoric (HF) Bath of the Purified Ore will produce Tiny Refined Graphite Ore.

He: Can be Centrifuged for Helium.

Zr : Sift like it was a gemstone to get Zirconium.

Semi-Refined Mixtures
There are mixtures that come out of the refinery processes described above that have no primary component, therefore they require additional refinement to become useful.