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Chapter 128 Acids and Bases 4
Xu Yingjie said: "It's not exactly water. We call it electrolyte. The caustic soda content in it is less than 10%, and there are many impurities that need to be separated and processed."
"Watch out, chlorine gas." Ji Sixui patted Xu Yingjie's shoulder.
"What, what." Bai Yu wanted to get closer and take a look.
"Be careful, don't move." Xu Yingjie was a little excited. He was not thinking that chlorine can disinfect, purify the environment, and be used to make hydrochloric acid, but "toxic gas".
Although chlorine gas is common, it was the first poisonous gas used in actual combat in the history of modern warfare. During World War I, it was said to have achieved outstanding results and countless dead souls. Moreover, chlorine is easy to produce and can be called a super killer in this time and space. No matter you are the Manchurian White Armored Soldiers, Guan Ning Iron Cavalry, Royal Family or Cromwellian Iron Armored Army, there is only one "death" when you encounter them.
Currently, the traveler industry cannot manufacture gas pressure vessels, so storing chlorine gas is impossible. But Xu Yingjie knew that there were many perverts in the weapons research group, and they might be able to create some evil moths.
This yellow-green gas rose in the glass tube, and everyone present held their breath. At this time, a small blade fan installed in another glass tube suddenly started running, which indicated that another colorless electrolytic product also came out - hydrogen.
"Everyone should pay attention." Ji Sidui began to educate the workers on safety: "This yellow gas is called chlorine gas. It is poisonous."
Watching Ji Sidui explain to a group of indigenous workers who seemed to understand but didn't understand what chlorine gas was, what hydrogen gas was, and how to prevent poisoning and explosions, Bai Yu thought to herself that I would never come to this chemical plant in the future - it was too dangerous.
The produced hydrogen is fed to the only modern device in the facility: the hydrochloric acid reactor. Hydrogen is introduced into the reactor for combustion, and then chlorine is introduced to generate hydrogen chloride gas. After cooling, it is absorbed by water and becomes hydrochloric acid.
This reaction is very dangerous. If the chlorine content in hydrogen is too high, it will explode directly. The solution is to strictly control the amount of chlorine entering during the reaction process, so that the toxic chlorine is surrounded by excess hydrogen, allowing the chlorine to fully react, preventing air pollution and Possible hybrid explosion download.
Because of the great danger, Ji Situi never considered indigenous equipment from the beginning, but directly purchased equipment from modern time and space.
Making hydrochloric acid can only consume part of the chlorine gas, and the rest is passed into a small reaction tower on the side, which has been filled with dried slaked lime in layers. The chlorine gas is absorbed by the slaked lime, forming calcium hypochlorite - which has a more familiar name: bleaching powder.
As the most common and effective disinfectant, the successful mass production of bleaching powder means that Chuanchuan Group has reached a new peak in disease prevention and epidemic prevention, which is of great significance to Chuanchuan Group's bases on both sides of the Wenlan River where people are extremely dense. When the army launches an expedition, there is no need to worry about the sanitation of drinking water along the way.
It is difficult for slaked lime to absorb chlorine completely. It will take away part of the chlorine gas more or less in the waste. In order to better utilize the chlorine gas and improve the air environment at the same time, the last waste gas absorption process is generally adopted.
The exhaust gas sent from the absorption tower is connected to the absorption cylinder through a pipe, and the cylinder is filled with lime milk prepared from slaked lime. The chlorine in the exhaust gas is absorbed by lime milk to generate calcium chlorate and calcium chloride.
After the lime milk is saturated with chlorine, it is pumped into a concentration pot, heated and then cooled to crystallize calcium chlorate. Calcium chlorate can be used as a herbicide. Calcium chloride can be obtained by extracting the liquid of calcium perchlorate and heating and concentrating it. Basically achieving zero emission of chlorine gas.
As for the electrolyte that continuously flows out during electrolysis, it already contains about 10% of caustic soda. However, it contains higher sodium chloride content. Such caustic soda solution cannot be used and must be concentrated.
The equipment used by Ji Situi for concentration is a large pot, which uses firewood to ignite coal to directly heat and concentrate. The strong smell caused everyone present who was not wearing safety glasses to flee.
"Is it too polluting to be boiled with such an open mouth?" Bai Yu said.
"Yes, but we don't have an evaporator, right? It's a waste of coal." Ji Sidei said loudly because he was wearing a chemical protective mask, "We will replace it when the machinery factory can provide us with it in the future."
After boiling for a while, crystals precipitated out of the bottom of the pot under the lye, and more and more crystals accumulated.
"Bai Yu, quickly scoop it out with a spoon and be careful not to bring out the lye."
Bai Yu quickly took the special wooden spoon and stood by the pot to scrape out the crystals from the bottom of the pot.
"Pay attention to safety." Ji Sidui looked at him nervously. This pot was made from roasted pigs collected from Goujiazhuang at that time, and has a large diameter. If you don't pay attention and fall down, you'll be dead.
Bai Yu carefully took out the crystals. The steam filling the pot felt pungent even while wearing a protective mask.
"Is this salt?" he asked.
“Yes, it’s real refined salt.”
The taken out refined salt is sent to the salt drying board, washed several times with dilute alkali solution, and then rinsed with saturated refined salt water. What is left is snow-white crystals. The sodium chloride purity of this salt is as high as 95% or more. It can be used to prepare physiological saline for medical infusion.
The electrolyte from which the salt has precipitated continues to be heated and concentrated until the concentration of the alkali solution reaches about 30, and it can be used in chemical industry. product. Of course, you can continue to concentrate and dry it into a solid, but this consumes too much coal and is not cost-effective for travelers.
The successful production of sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, and caustic soda gave the Work Energy Commission great confidence. Wang Luobin, Zhan Wuya and others would come to these two simple workshops whenever they had time to see how this indigenous method was being implemented. device of.
Although these two sets of equipment are simple, the benefits they bring are immeasurable. According to Ji Situi's calculations, under the conditions of ensuring the supply of raw materials and energy, the contact method sulfuric acid workshop is equipped with 15 workers in three shifts, and the annual start-up time In 345 days, the daily output of 98% of concentrated sulfuric acid is 1 ton, which can be increased to 12 tons per day if necessary; the salt electrolysis workshop is equipped with 24 workers in three shifts, and it can produce 475 tons of caustic soda, 87 tons of bleaching powder, and chlorine per year based on 345 days of operation per year. 2 tons of calcium phosphate and 6 tons of calcium chloride. Refined salt with 95% purity, 475 tons of sodium chloride, and 30 tons of hydrochloric acid.
The output was minuscule by modern standards, but for the Planning Commission, which had until recently distributed any chemical on a milliliter-by-gram basis, the opening of these two workshops amounted to a windfall.
Even Shi Niaoren came. Seeing the 95% high-purity sodium chloride that Ji Sihui had prepared for him, Shi Niaoren was so happy that he could not close his mouth. This could solve a big problem: the physiological saline for infusion and injection was available. Bleaching powder is not to mention a good thing that the Ministry of Health is looking forward to. As for crude calcium chloride, it is refined by pharmaceutical factories and made into calcium chloride injection, which can treat tetany, intestinal colic, ureteral colic, urticaria, exudative edema, and itching caused by low blood calcium. skin disease. It is used to treat vitamin D deficiency rickets, rickets, and calcium salt supplementation for pregnant and lactating women. Substantially improve the physical quality of the people in this time and space.
With enough hydrochloric acid, the planned glucose manufacturing of the pharmaceutical factory can also be put on the construction schedule. Shi Niaoren immediately contacted Wu Nanhai and asked him to quickly come up with starch raw materials. Together, they could set up a glucose workshop immediately.
As for Wu Nanhai, he was overjoyed to suddenly get the herbicide that he had never expected, and immediately requested that all the related production be allocated to him for use. He also asked with concern when ammonium sulfate would be provided to him so that he could cooperate with hybrid rice to launch a super yield satellite.
Even people from the Ministry of Light Industry came to ask how much quota of caustic soda and sulfuric acid they could give them. With these two things, they would be able to provide white paper, not to mention soap. However, the Ministry of Chemical Industry and the Ministry of Light Industry must cooperate in making soap. Originally, the Ministry of Chemical Industry should obtain glycerin through the process of making soap.
It's like a snowball. Once a technical bottleneck is broken through, many production areas that were originally stuck suddenly become active. The number of products that can be produced increases at once, and the scale of production capacity also expands.
The military department also responded quickly. Xi Yazhou called on the same day and asked the Ministry of Chemical Industry to seriously consider the military value and use of chlorine as a weapon.
It is impossible to directly release chlorine gas. Xu Yingjie and several people in the weapons research team studied it and developed a chlorine mine: a pack of calcium hypochlorite powder - that is, bleaching powder - is placed under the can of hydrochloric acid. A cartridge filled with 30 grams of guncotton is tied to it, and the two substances are blown into a mist and mixed together through an explosion. As for the effect, everyone agreed that if you want to use it, it is best to detonate multiple bombs at the same time.
Some people have also proposed that poison gas shells can be made. The principle is the same as above, and the structure can be improved so that it can withstand the shooting of howitzers.
"Not recommended." Xu Yingjie had a hard time imagining who could run around with many hydrochloric acid cans on the battlefield.
"In my opinion, if we have to rely on poison gas shells and poison gas mines," Lin Shenhe of the artillery research and development team made a concluding speech, "it is better to make some glass bottles with hydrochloric acid in them, and then throw them out as hand grenades. .”
The response from the masses was very good, with praises from various departments pouring in. But as the head of the chemical industry department, Ji Sixui was not happy at all. Behind this series of dazzling product catalogs and production figures lies high energy consumption and extremely unstable production conditions.
A salt electrolysis workshop consumes 160 tons of salt, 60 tons of quicklime, 05 tons of hydrochloric acid, 35 tons of coal, and 140,000 kWh of direct current every year. 1500 tons of water. This is an extremely objective consumption of materials and energy. Especially electricity and industrial water. The installed capacity of Bobu Power Station was originally only 213k, and just one electrolysis workshop consumed almost one-tenth of the power station's annual power generation. Insufficient power has actually become an important obstacle to the electrolysis salt workshop. The workshop originally planned to start at the end of last year has been pending. It was not until recently that the second phase of the Bairentan Hydropower Station was successfully expanded. A pot camel machine there was moved to the Bobu Power Station. The installed capacity of Bobu was doubled before it was officially put into operation.
Ji Situi plans to wait until the manufacturing capacity of the machinery department is improved to a higher level, and then gradually replace the current equipment that is too crude. Such high energy consumption and high pollution production is really not the future direction.
Another disadvantage of the local method is that it "looks beautiful". After it was put into actual operation, many problems that were not mentioned in the construction brochure were exposed one after another.
The most typical one is the sulfuric acid workshop. Since the start of the operation, there have been many problems, big and small. The most serious one is that the conversion rate is low, less than 70, resulting in the concentration of some sulfuric acid being too low, only 80, and it must be re-blended. Reach factory standards. The outlet of the blower contains acid, which is sprayed everywhere, causing serious corrosion on the ground; the exhaust smoke from the chimney outlet contains a large amount of acid, which immediately turns into acid rain when encountering humid air, eroding and destroying all temporary workshops and sheds around the chimney. Several workers suffered mild acid burns and were hospitalized.
Ji Situi and Xu Yingjie, as well as mechanical and construction technicians, made six consecutive modifications to the entire system. Even the absorption tower was dismantled and refilled several times, and a pebble dust collector was added to the converter. ; Add coke to the air outlet as an absorbent; add acid-removing tiles to the top of the absorption tower, plus coke. I even touched it by myself and held meetings to discuss and bring books. Fortunately, the big library has rich information and all kinds of problems can be found one by one. After finding a solution, it took a month of back and forth to stabilize production.
The sulfuric acid workshop had just stabilized, and several small-scale accidents occurred in the electrolysis workshop. The most outrageous thing was that someone actually took a fancy to hydrogen and designed and manufactured a balloon by himself, saying that it was to prepare materials for future balloon observation troops. Filling the workshop with hydrogen. But when this person came up wearing chemical fiber clothes, he suffered second-degree burns all over his body and was rushed to the hospital for treatment. The entire electrolysis workshop was paralyzed for ten hours. Ji Sixui was so angry that he enclosed the workshop with a bamboo fence and hung a skull and crossbones danger sign high outside. No one is allowed to come in or out at will.
When Shi Niaoren returned from visiting the Bobu Chemical Factory, he discussed with the Planning Commission and the Ministry of Chemical Industry the supply of several urgently needed materials for the pharmaceutical factory. Then he went to the dormitory area of Cibairen City and took samples before returning. General Hospital.
"Touch it, touch it"
Shi Niaoren hummed and walked into Bairen General Hospital carrying several bags of stool. Ye Yuming, who was passing by, muttered in surprise: "Has this guy become stupid after looking at shit all day long?"
The real reason is of course not that. Sitting in his "first medical testing center in this time and space", Niao Ren confidently crossed his legs and piled a pile of poop sample jars with a smug smile. The successful start-up of the Ministry of Chemical Industry rekindled his enthusiasm for pharmaceutical factories, which had gradually cooled down. It greatly increased his motivation and thought about what other drugs he could make. This is better than ten years of hard training in internal skills. There is someone in the Time Travel Group.
