As a mathematics, physics and chemistry student and a science time traveler, I have long disdained questions about the proportion of black powder and the production of rifled guns.
Under Zhang Rui's guidance, Yichao has now taken the lead in possessing smokeless gunpowder technology and is the first in the world to use yellow explosives.
However, although Yichao possesses the most advanced guns and weapons in the world, it is still unable to fight back on the battlefield of microorganisms.
Zhang Rui saw with his own eyes on the battlefield soldiers who were not seriously injured but died due to infections that could not be treated;
I have seen patients die from dehydration due to high fever;
I have also seen family members of patients kneeling down to beg for help in order to get steamed buns stained with human blood to treat tuberculosis...
If those are just individual cases, then smallpox, plague, malaria, etc., once these plagues break out, they can easily bring down entire groups of people, and their lethality is definitely no less than those who died in wars.
Birth, old age, illness and death are inevitable processes in life.
An open-minded person may say some admirable words, but the pain of parting will always be left to the living.
Since the uprising, Zhang Rui has had to endure too many separations of life and death. Many of these people are not treated simply because their wounds are infected by bacteria. If antibiotics are available, they may not die to a large extent.
As a result, Zhang Rui had to face a problem that all time travelers have to face - the production and extraction of antibiotics.
Could antibiotics have been produced in ancient times?
When it comes to antibiotics, penicillin is the first choice.
It is the first antibiotic discovered and used in history, and it is also the most likely and easiest antibiotic to obtain and extract by Zhang Rui.
Penicillin, also known as penicillin. Anyone who knows a bit about history should know how precious it was when it first appeared. Every drop is more expensive than gold. When necessary, even the user's urine must be saved and re-extracted before use.
So after traveling through the Qing Dynasty, can penicillin be purified?
Or is it only limited by technology, and purification can only be done using local methods like in the Korean drama "The Good Doctor" to extract unqualified semi-finished products without quality assurance?
For this reason, Zhang Rui also conducted in-depth research before traveling through time.
To make and extract penicillin, generally speaking, three key things are needed: phenylacetic acid ①, butyl acetate ②, and soda water.
The function of phenylacetic acid is to help Penicillium produce penicillin, thereby improving the production of penicillin. It can be the icing on the cake if used, but it is not impossible if it is not used.
In addition to the complex synthesis of phenylacetic acid, there are also many foods in nature that contain phenylacetic acid, such as grapes, green tea, honey, etc. Among them, honey has the highest content.
If necessary, sterile honey can also be added to the culture medium for auxiliary use.
Of course, if you do this, the cost of cultured penicillin will be much higher. However, compared to the price of gold after research, it seems to have little impact.
After solving the problem of benzene acetic acid, we will start with the most critical bacterial species.
Good penicillin strains can not only increase the production speed of penicillin, but also quickly increase the production volume of penicillin.
According to previous relevant research, the best penicillin strain in nature is the top-grade penicillin penicillium selected from rotten Roman melons ③ . This selection can be assisted by using a high-power microscope ⑤ .
After selecting the bacterial strain, the next step is to prepare the culture medium (also called culture medium).
A high-quality culture medium should be sterilized corn steep liquor, and then add lactose for auxiliary fermentation.
Lactose can be obtained from mammalian milk, such as cow's milk or goat's milk or even... (Harmony).
The addition of lactose can make the penicillin produced more delicate and less rough during crystallization.
After the penicillin fermentation broth is cultured, a small amount of alum can be added as a flocculant to precipitate, and then dilute sulfuric acid can be added to adjust the pH to improve the stability of the penicillin. At the same time, the temperature should be controlled at 10°C to reduce the probability of penicillin hydrolysis.
After filtering out the filtrate, butyl acetate is used for extraction.
Butyl acetate can be obtained by the esterification of acetic acid and n-butanol in the presence of sulfuric acid. The main raw materials are acetic acid (vinegar) and butanol.
It goes without saying how to obtain acetic acid.
As for butanol, it can be obtained by fermentation with pure acetone-butanol bacteria.
Acetobutylic bacteria are abundant in soil and grain seeds and can be cultured through culture media.
After extraction with butyl acetate, transfer to neutral slightly alkaline purified water for buffering, then extract the buffer with butyl acetate again, and use activated carbon for decolorization.
Finally, dilute baking soda water (sodium bicarbonate) is added as a salt-forming agent, and penicillin G sodium salt ⑥ can be obtained through azeotropic distillation.
This is the most stable penicillin.
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In addition, the ethanol vapor is converted into acetaldehyde through a high-temperature silver-copper alloy, and the acetaldehyde is converted into butyraldehyde using alkali catalysis, and then heated with dilute acid to obtain crotonaldehyde.
Acetic acid is cracked at high temperature to generate ketene, which is then condensed with crotonaldehyde to form polyester, which is then hydrolyzed and refined to obtain the food preservative sorbic acid.
Sorbic acid and potassium sorbate can allow food such as canned meat to be stored longer, thereby producing canned meat military rations.
Acetic acid is cracked at high temperature to obtain ketene, which is then absorbed with acetic acid to obtain acetic anhydride. During refining, high-purity acetic anhydride can be obtained by adding benzene ⑥ to remove acetic acid through azeotropic distillation or through efficient vacuum distillation.
With acetic anhydride, you can add salicylic acid ⑦ to create a miracle drug for analgesic and fever reduction: aspirin.
Ethanol is heated under the catalysis of concentrated sulfuric acid to obtain diethyl ether ⑧.
An appropriate amount of ether can be used as an anesthetic to reduce the pain of the patient's surgery.
Note ①: Phenylacetic acid is a precursor chemical that can be produced through a series of operations using calcium carbide, quicklime, soda, sulfuric acid, coal tar, salt, etc. as raw materials. In order to prevent this book from being 404'ed, detailed production instructions will not be given.
②: Acetic anhydride appears in the synthesis of butyl acetate. Among them, acetic anhydride is a precursor chemical and will not be described in detail for safety reasons.
③: Roman melon, similar to Xinjiang cantaloupe.
④: As a natural penicillin strain. This mold produces very quickly and its output is hundreds of times higher than Penicillium Staphylococcus oxidase.
⑤: Around 1665, the British scientist Robert Hooke added coarse and fine motion focusing mechanisms, an illumination system, and a workbench for carrying specimens to the microscope. Between 1673 and 1677, Dutch scientist Leeuwen Hooke built a single-element magnifying glass-type high-power microscope. So at this time, the microscope not only existed, but also completed the basic structure of modern times.
⑥: Penicillin is an acid and is not very stable by itself, so it needs to be made into a salt to increase its stability. Of course, in addition to sodium salt, potassium salt can also be made.
⑦: Benzene, one of the main components of coal tar.
⑧: Salicylic acid can be produced from phenol, sodium hydroxide, carbon dioxide, sulfuric acid and other materials. If it is too troublesome, it can also be extracted from willow, poplar, holly bark or kiwi fruit.
⑨Phenol, one of the main components of coal tar. Can be used to make picric acid. (For the safety of this book, I dare not write too much.)
⑩Ether is a controlled item. Please do not take it personally.
At the same time, the above operations have great safety risks. They must not be operated in private to avoid dangers.
