1855 United States Tycoon

Chapter 267 McDonald Award

After spending a night on Morgan’s boat, Scrooge left the yacht “Pirate”, still carrying the faint scent of those young girls. Well, Morgan is a very health and safety-conscious person. In order not to get into some health troubles, most of his ships are made of original high-quality goods.

After leaving the Viking, Scrooge did not go directly to Duck Castle, but took the train and went directly to Cleveland. Two days later, in the University of Cleveland’s large laboratory, there will be an important experiment that may change human history. Scrooge must stare personally. In addition, going directly to Cleveland can also avoid being seen by Dorothea after going home. Although in fact, apart from business talks, Dorothea and Mimi knew exactly what the men did on that boat, and didn’t intend to control too much. But if a man dared to bring home the traces of fooling around, it would be absolutely intolerable. Well, the last time Scrooge accidentally brought back the smell of perfume, Dorothea smelled it all at once. Although I took a shower and changed clothes this time, considering Dorothea’s nose is particularly strong, Scrooge thought it would be better to go directly to Cleveland.

The synthetic ammonia experiment was not actually set up in a large laboratory, because considering the high temperature and high pressure, there is a danger of explosion, plus the plan. The thing to be synthesized is ammonia, and some of the gas escapes. It is normal. Of course, if you want it not to escape at all, it is not impossible, but the cost will be very high. As for the smell of ammonia, um, if it is really done in a large laboratory, people in other departments will have opinions. Therefore, Scrooge and the others simply bought an island on Lake Erie and became a laboratory.

Prior to this, some basic experiments have had some results. This is the first experiment that combines these results. Now that these equipments have been installed on the island, the working team is intensively debugging these equipments.

A furnace for producing semi-water gas (that is, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas obtained by passing water vapor through hot coke) has been erected, and the corresponding filtration and purification equipment has been installed. Because the coke used during production or simply coal is not possible without Impurities, these Impurities, especially sulfur-containing Impurities, will be mixed in the water gas. If they are not removed, it will cause a series of problems. In addition, due to the incomplete reaction, it is not done well, and even a certain amount of oxygen will be mixed in the half-water gas. Well, this is even more harmful. If these things cannot be removed, wait until the pressure is increased. , Once heated, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and oxygen mixed together-the scene of the explosion is so beautiful that people can hardly imagine it. In the original history, many people were killed or injured in this step.

Another key equipment of the experiment is the piston type gas compressor. Obviously, it is really difficult to pressurize the gas to 500 atmospheres at one time. Therefore, in this experiment, the people of Shi Gaozhi adopted a grading process. The pressure method, first-level first-level pressurization, finally successfully pressurized the air to 500 atmospheres in the previous experiment. Of course, this is not unheard of. For example, a certain pipe once burst due to quality problems. Fortunately, only high-pressure air was sprayed out of it. If it is in the production process, the sprayed out is all hydrogen, plus a small spark. , The big firecrackers are really exciting, and they definitely have the strength to kill those present in seconds.

Then there is the conversion tower. This equipment that needs to work at 500 atmospheres and 500 degrees Celsius is the core equipment for the entire ammonia synthesis. Hydrogen and nitrogen are synthesized into ammonia here. This is the most critical. It is also the most difficult step. But this thing has been made, but the volume is not big enough, and it is completely incomparable with those big guys with an annual output of hundreds of thousands of tons in later generations.

“Mr. Liebig, how about the catalyst experiment?” Scrooge asked him, the famous father of modern chemistry who was now leading the entire project team, who he had borrowed from the Prussian.

“Mr. MacDonald, we have done a lot of experiments. So far, as you guessed last time, some stable heavy metals seem to work well as catalysts. Well, we have tried platinum, rhodium, For metal elements such as iridium, osmium, gold, tungsten, etc., at present, osmium has the best effect and can achieve a conversion ratio of 8%.” Mr. Li Bixi replied.

Because it is a reversible reaction, even under high pressure and high temperature, the efficiency of nitrogen and hydrogen to synthesize ammonia is quite low, and the catalyst must be relied on to improve the efficiency of the chemical reaction. However, in this era when there is no periodic table of elements, although people have discovered the role of catalysts in practice, scholars in this era basically know nothing about the principles of catalysts. Many At that time, they use catalysts, just like their seniors do alchemy, relying on constant experimentation.

Scrooge knew that in future generations, synthetic ammonia used a composite iron catalyst, which was basically a mixture of ferroferric oxide and a small amount of calcium oxide alumina. But in this era, because the principle of the catalyst itself and the mechanism of catalyst poisoning are not understood, it is not particularly delicate when removing some harmful impurities. In this way, a composite type like this The iron catalyst is naturally not easy to be found, even if it is found, it will be difficult to use because of the serious poisoning of the catalyst.

Therefore, in this era, the catalyst that can be used in the ammonia industry is metal osmium. Under the catalysis of the heaviest metal in the world, it can obtain 8% at a pressure of up to 500 atmospheres and a temperature of 500 degrees Celsius. Conversion rate. Then by separating the converted ammonia gas in time, and then synthesizing the remaining gas again, such repeated operation can obtain enough ammonia gas. As for the use of ammonia to produce urea, it is already a simple matter. It is the naming of urea that makes Scrooge very troubled. Originally, Scrooge planned to set up a company called United States Cleveland Corporation to produce this thing. Even Scrooge wanted to give this fertilizer a well-known name, called “Jin Ke La”. “. However, the word “Ke La” is a dialect of northeastern China, and it is completely meaningless when it is translated into United States. Well, the name “Golden Clay” doesn’t have the taste of “Golden Clay”.

In the end, Scrooge, who became very funny, thought of simply changing the “golden clods” to “soil-specific gold”. When the time comes to advertise, he will find a few people to pretend to be Santa Claus on the radio station and sing: “No Christmas this year. Give a gift… yeah… yeah… yeah, if you give a gift, you will get the earth and gold!”

Scrooge had already planned and asked the Germans to use metal osmium as a catalyst to synthesize ammonia. The metal osmium reserves are scarce, it is a completely rare metal, and the price is naturally high. In addition, the conversion rate is only about 8%, and Scrooge and the others have secretly completed the experiment. The conversion rate of the iron catalyst is about 20%, which is far away. This means that the raw material gas needs to be synthesized less frequently. In addition, when the iron catalyst is used, The pressure can even be reduced to 300 atmospheres. In this way, the procurement and operating costs of such things as containers, pipes, and compressors will be greatly reduced. In this way, Scrooge believes that he is producing urea. The cost at the time may be one-half less than that of the Germans. And such a cost advantage means that, at least in markets outside of Germany, German goods are absolutely unable to compete with Scrooge’s “earth gold”.

“Mr. Liebig, how does it feel to work in the large laboratory of the University of Cleveland? Are you still used to life?” Scrooge asked kindly in his newly learned German.

“Ah, it feels good. The equipment in the laboratory is definitely the best I have seen, and the professional quality of the staff is not worse than that of Copenhagen. Especially the younger generation, which grows very fast. It will not be long, Cleveland The university will become a great university like Cambridge and Copenhagen. Actually, I would say that it is not bad now. This is a reputation that needs to be accumulated. As for Life, the climate here is good, and my English is still good enough. , So it’s pretty convenient on Life.”

“Well, Mr. Liebig, have you ever considered that after this plan is completed, you can simply stay in Cleveland as a visiting scholar? Well, you may not know that, in order to encourage scientific progress, I once put out a fund to set up Awarded a series of awards for “Macdonald”, including mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and medicine, literature, economics, peace activities and other awards. Now, it is time to award the awards as soon as possible. I think Mr. Maxwell, because of his equations, You should be able to get a prize in physics, and our current research can feed more people and save more people from hunger. And the decisive role of nitrogen on crops and the concept of chemical fertilizers were exactly what you proposed back then. Yes. So I think you should get the award in this respect. Of course, this is just my opinion. The specific award is to be given to a committee elected by various universities in the United States, but I still have it in it. A lot of say, at least, I still have the right to nominate.”

“Mr. MacDonald, I think you should get the awards in chemistry and medicine.” Libig said seriously.

“Ah, Mr. Li Bixi, I am already rich. I can do what I want without a bonus.” Scrooge smiled sincerely. “But the bonus, although not much, is only about 40,000. About US dollars, but for a chemist with an average economic situation, this has reduced his life pressure a lot and allowed him to devote more time to research.”

“In this way, this bonus shouldn’t be given to me, because I am old and will retire soon.” Li Bixi smiled, “This is probably my last research project. From now on, my experience will be the main focus. It’s on training students. Well, it’s great here, but when people get old, they miss their hometown very much…”

“Do you think, in the team you are carrying, who else can receive this reward?” Scrooge asked.