Mekanism Full 5X Ore Processing Complete Tutorial

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through the complete process of quintupling (5X) your ores using the Mekanism mod. While ore processing in Mekanism can seem complex at first, we’ll break it down into manageable chapters so you can build your processing line step by step. We recommend building and testing each chapter before moving to the next one.

Understanding the Setup

Before we dive into the machinery, it’s important to understand the basic layout. Think of your ore processing line as a production flow. We’ll use colored wool to represent different paths—with the red line indicating where your ore travels down the processing chain. Your raw ores will enter from an input chest and travel down this designated red line through various machines until they reach your output chest as processed ingots.

We’re going to work backwards through this system, starting with the output and working toward the input. This approach makes it easier to understand how each component fits into the overall process.

Chapter 1: 2X Ore Processing (Doubling)

Let’s start with the simplest setup—doubling your ore output. This chapter requires just two machines:

Enrichment Chamber — where your ore becomes dirty ore dust

Energized Smelter — where your ore dust becomes ingots

The flow is straightforward: raw ore goes into the Enrichment Chamber, which outputs dirty ore dust. That dust then travels into the Energized Smelter, which produces your ingots. This simple two-machine setup doubles your ore output.

Chapter 2: 3X Ore Processing (Tripling)

To triple your ore output, we’ll add two new machines to our setup:

Crusher — crushes ore into dust

Purification Chamber — purifies ore dust with oxygen

The new processing chain looks like this: ore → Crusher → Enrichment Chamber → Energized Smelter. However, the Purification Chamber requires oxygen to function. Here’s how to set that up:

Setting Up Oxygen Production

To supply oxygen to your Purification Chamber, you’ll need an Electrolytic Separator:

Pump water into an Electrolytic Separator

The separator splits water into hydrogen and oxygen

Hydrogen always outputs on the left side (gray pipe)

Oxygen always outputs on the right side (blue pipe)

Set both outputs to “Dump Excess” to prevent clogging

Route the oxygen from the right output into your Purification Chamber. Inside this chamber, ore shards will be converted into ore clumps when exposed to oxygen.

Note: There’s a dedicated tutorial available for the Electrolytic Separator in the description.

Triple Processing Summary

Your tripled ore processing flow is:

Raw ore → Crusher

Crushed ore → Enrichment Chamber (produces clean ore dust)

Clean ore dust → Energized Smelter (produces ingots)

Plus: Purification Chamber receives ore shards + oxygen → produces ore clumps, which feed into the Crusher.

Chapter 3: 4X Ore Processing (Quadrupling)

To reach 4X ore production, we introduce the Chemical Injection Chamber. This machine requires hydrogen chloride (HCl) as input. The ore shards will be converted into ore clumps before moving to the Purification Chamber.

Creating Hydrogen Chloride

Hydrogen chloride is created through a multi-step process. You’ll need to build a Thermal Evaporation Block—a large structure that converts water and heat into brine.

Building the Thermal Evaporation Block

The Thermal Evaporation Block specifications:

Dimensions: 4×4 base, up to 17 blocks in height

Corners are optional (not required)

Interior must be empty except for the bottom

Requires: 1 controller and several valves

To heat and fill your evaporation block:

Connect a power source → Resistive Heater → valve → Thermodynamic Conductor into the block

Connect a water pump → valve into the block

The block will naturally heat faster in hot biomes, but using a resistive heater works in any biome

Note: Full tutorials for the water pump and thermal evaporation block are available in the video description.

Processing Brine into Chlorine

Once your evaporation block creates brine:

Pump brine out via a valve into an Electrolytic Separator

The separator splits brine into sodium and chlorine

Dump the sodium (left output) — you don’t need it

Output the chlorine (right output, blue pipe) into a Chemical Infuser

Creating Hydrogen Chloride Gas

In the Chemical Infuser:

Left input: hydrogen (from your earlier Electrolytic Separator producing oxygen)

Right input: chlorine (from the brine separator)

Output: hydrogen chloride gas

Route the hydrogen chloride into your Chemical Injection Chamber.

Quadruple Processing Summary

Your complete 4X processing chain is:

Raw ore → Chemical Injection Chamber (with hydrogen chloride) → produces ore shards

Ore shards → Purification Chamber (with oxygen) → produces ore clumps

Ore clumps → Crusher → produces dirty ore dust

Dirty ore dust → Enrichment Chamber → produces clean ore dust

Clean ore dust → Energized Smelter → produces ingots

Chapter 4: 5X Ore Processing (Quintupling)

The final step to 5X ore production is the most complex. This involves creating sulfuric acid, which dissolves ore into a slurry that’s then washed and crystallized back into ore. Let’s break this down carefully.

Creating Sulfuric Acid

The sulfuric acid production chain involves several steps:

Step 1: Gunpowder to Sulfur

Take the hydrogen chloride from Chapter 3 and route it to a Chemical Injection Chamber along with gunpowder:

Input: hydrogen chloride + gunpowder

Output: sulfur (sulfur line)

Step 2: Sulfur to Sulfur Dioxide

The sulfur travels into a Chemical Oxidizer:

Input: sulfur

Output: sulfur dioxide

Step 3: Sulfur Dioxide to Sulfur Trioxide

Next, add oxygen to sulfur dioxide in a Chemical Infuser:

Input: sulfur dioxide + oxygen

Output: sulfur trioxide

You can use a separate water pump with an Electrolytic Separator to get additional oxygen for this step. Be careful with your piping—ensure oxygen destined for this infuser doesn’t get confused with oxygen for other machines. If needed, use different pipe colors or types to avoid clogging.

Step 4: Water to Water Vapor

You’ll also need water vapor. Take water from your electrolytic separator and run it through a Rotary Condensentrator:

Input: water

Output: water vapor

Step 5: Sulfur Trioxide to Sulfuric Acid

Combine sulfur trioxide and water vapor in a Chemical Infuser:

Input: sulfur trioxide + water vapor

Output: sulfuric acid

Processing Ore with Sulfuric Acid

Now that you have sulfuric acid, the ore dissolution process begins:

Chemical Dissolution Chamber

Route your raw ore and sulfuric acid into a Chemical Dissolution Chamber:

Input: raw ore + sulfuric acid

Output: ore slurry (pressurized gas pipe)

The sulfuric acid essentially melts down your ore into a slurry form.

Chemical Washer

The slurry travels via pressurized tube to a Chemical Washer:

Input: ore slurry + water

Output: clean ore slurry (pressurized gas pipe)

Water washes the chemicals from the slurry, cleaning it.

Chemical Crystallizer

The clean slurry travels via pressurized tube to a Chemical Crystallizer:

Input: clean ore slurry

Output: ore crystals

The crystallizer converts the liquid slurry back into solid ore form.

Final Integration

From the Chemical Crystallizer, route the ore crystals using a Logistical Transporter back into the Chemical Injection Chamber from Chapter 3 (the one that receives hydrogen chloride). From there, your ore follows the complete 4X processing chain:

Ore → Chemical Injection Chamber (HCl) → shards

Shards → Purification Chamber (O₂) → clumps

Clumps → Crusher → dirty dust

Dirty dust → Enrichment Chamber → clean dust

Clean dust → Energized Smelter → ingots

5X Processing Complete Summary

Your full 5X processing setup combines all previous chapters with the sulfuric acid chain. To recap the entire flow:

Sulfuric Acid Production: Gunpowder + HCl → sulfur → sulfur dioxide → (sulfur dioxide + O₂) → sulfur trioxide → (sulfur trioxide + water vapor) → sulfuric acid

Ore Dissolution: Raw ore + sulfuric acid → slurry → (slurry + water) → clean slurry → ore crystals

Ore Processing: Ore crystals → Chemical Injection Chamber (HCl) → Purification Chamber (O₂) → Crusher → Enrichment Chamber → Energized Smelter → ingots

Building Tips and Best Practices

We recommend building this system in stages:

Build and test Chapter 2 (3X processing)

Add Chapter 3 (4X processing) once Chapter 2 is stable

Add Chapter 4 (5X processing) once Chapter 3 is working correctly

Add Chapter 5 (final chain) once all components are proven

Building in bite-sized chunks makes troubleshooting much easier and helps you understand each component’s role.

Visual Organization

Use colored wool to represent different processing lines. This helps you visualize what’s happening and makes it easier to trace problems. For example, use red for your main ore line, blue for hydrogen chloride, and other colors for alternative fluid paths.

Preventing Pipe Clogs

One critical issue to watch for: when multiple outputs need to go different directions, your pipes might send fluid to the wrong destination. For example, if you’re outputting both oxygen and another gas from the same machine, use clearly separated pipes or different pipe types. When in doubt, add a valve to control flow explicitly.

Additional Resources

Several components have dedicated tutorials available:

Electrolytic Separator operation

Water Pump setup

Thermal Evaporation Block construction and operation

Brine and chlorine production (covered separately)

Check the description for links to these individual guides.

Conclusion

You now have a complete understanding of Mekanism’s 5X ore processing system. While the full setup is complex, breaking it into chapters makes it manageable. Start with Chapter 2, then incrementally add each subsequent chapter once the previous one is running smoothly. Don’t hesitate to reference back to earlier sections if you get confused, and use visual markers like colored wool to keep track of your fluid flows.

With patience and careful construction, you’ll have a powerful ore processing facility that turns your raw ores into ingots five times more efficiently than simple smelting.

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