Refined Phosphorus

Refined Phosphorus is a refined element used mainly as critter food and as fuel for the Geotuner. It is made by melting Phosphorite into liquid phosphorus and then freezing it again. Because Refined Phosphorus has a much higher specific heat capacity than Phosphorite, this conversion absorbs a significant amount of heat.

In practice, it is most often produced intentionally from Phosphorite rather than found naturally. When liquid phosphorus cools and solidifies, the result depends on the amount present: quantities of 160 kg or more become natural tiles of Refined Phosphorus and must be mined out, while smaller amounts solidify into debris without losing mass. Mining a natural tile reduces its mass by half.

Refined Phosphorus has a few specialized uses:

• Azure Bugs and Abyss Bugs can eat it.
• It can be used as bait in Airborne Critter Bait.
• The Geotuner consumes it to improve metal volcanoes, increasing both output and eruption temperature.

For Geotuner use, each active unit grants a 20% increase to metal volcano output and raises the temperature of the emitted molten metal by 50°C for 600 seconds. This effect stacks up to five Geotuners per volcano, making Refined Phosphorus a key resource for heavily optimized metal volcano tapping.

Because of its niche role, Refined Phosphorus is usually worth saving for volcano tuning or critter handling rather than general storage. Its production chain also has an important thermal side effect: converting Phosphorite into Refined Phosphorus can serve as a useful heat sink if a base already has access to hot phosphorus or a controlled cooling setup.