Nanming: I can build wonders

Chapter 286 The Emergence of Daming Chemical Industry

The next day, Huang Luzhuang and others had just had breakfast. As soon as they stepped into the gate of the factory, he and all the gunpowder factory craftsmen had to do one thing, which was to line up and read Zhu Kezang's safety experiment rules:
In order to ensure the normal progress of the experiment and strengthen the safety management of the laboratory, this safety system is specially formulated.NOTE: Suitable for explosive configuration experiments.

[-]. Before starting the experiment, it is necessary to plan safety accident response measures, set up escape routes, and equip fire extinguishing and healing appliances.

[-]. All experimental raw materials, instruments, and finished products must be managed by special personnel, and the safety inspection log should be filled in every day.

[-]. Before leaving the experimental site every day, water, fire, poison, etc. must be turned off, and doors and windows must be closed.

[-]. Before large-scale experiments start, all raw materials and processes must be tested in small doses.

[-]. For dangerous experiments, such as high temperature, explosion, toxicity, etc., prescribed protective clothing must be worn.

After reading aloud, they can go to work in their own positions.

Every sentence of this rule is the price of blood. When developing the flash cap required for the trigger rifle, there were too many accidents because there was no safety experiment!

So Zhu Kezang learned from the pain and wrote this safety experiment code, and he must read it aloud every day before he can go to work!
This is not formalism, but to let the concept of safe production and safe experiment go deep into the heart of every craftsman.

Huang Luzhuang and others immediately assembled a bunch of utensils skillfully.

These experimental instruments are all produced by the Daming Glass Factory. For example, the four or five-foot-long spiral glass condenser tube had to be bought from the British at a high price, and the price was as high as 18 taels of silver!

Under the auspices of Huang Luzhuang, a great inventor, the glass factory took a month to break through the difficulty of the spiral glass condenser. So far, the experimental equipment is no longer stuck by Westerners.

Huang Luzhuang is really a valuable multi-talented person of Xin Daming, able to intervene in everything, Zhu Kezang has a hunch that he will be the first master craftsman of Xin Daming, faster than Su Laocheng.

"Yes, the essence of this nitrocellulose is fuming nitric acid and pure cotton."

Zhu Kezang took the trouble to explain the production process of nitrocellulose that he knew.

Although this thing sounds simple, and it was built with only four or five lines of characters, in the actual production process, if any detail goes wrong, the trial production will fail.

The technical process in memory is only "pure cotton fiber", "concentrated nitric acid", and "nitration for 15 minutes".

In order to create powerful military nitrocellulose, Huang Luzhuang and others had to go through repeated trials.

He looked at Huangluzhuang again, "By the way, I heard that when I was in Guangzhou, you already produced fuming nitric acid?"

Because nitric acid is volatile, concentrated nitric acid will absorb water in the air to form a layer of mist. The so-called "fuming nitric acid" refers to nitric acid with a concentration of more than 90%.

This thing is the basis of almost all explosives, and it is also one of the core chemical raw materials. It is also the key drug that Zhu Kezang ordered to trial-produce early in the morning.

"Back to the emperor, I made it by distillation, but the output is less."

With concentrated nitric acid, half of the nitrocellulose is produced. Zhu Kezang nodded in satisfaction. As for the output, the nitrocellulose can't be used too much.

"Let's go, first let me see how you prepare nitric acid."

In the factory building in the southern suburbs of Chengtian Mansion, Huang Luzhuang and others rushed to get the materials used for the experiment.

Soon, Huangluzhuang began to calcinate a green powder in a glass flask, and someone else was in charge of watching the fire and the sealing of the equipment.

After a while, the smoke passed through the condenser tube and entered the collecting bottle at the other end.

Huang Luzhuang explained at the side: "This nitric acid can actually be produced since ancient times, but there is too much water in it. Weichen remembered that the emperor mentioned that concentrated sulfuric acid can absorb water, and then thought of using concentrated sulfuric acid to produce fuming nitric acid. After many attempts, he finally got what he wanted. become."

China has never been short of talents!

Zhu Kezang was also very pleased. He had only created some soil, and Daming's scientific career had begun to take root.

By the time you arrived, a large bottle of concentrated sulfuric acid had been made in the laboratory.

Huangluzhuang immediately led people to mix the prepared saltpeter powder with concentrated sulfuric acid, the ratio of which was already tested by them, and started to bottle it again and burn it.

That extremely long condenser tube came in handy.

In fact, Huaxia had a mature "empirical science" very early, just like "calcining green vitriol to get green vitriol oil", which is actually the production of concentrated sulfuric acid by indigenous methods.

In addition, "decocting and refining into pots of saltpeter" is the method of recrystallization and purification of saltpeter.

These are recorded in Tiangong Kaiwu.

With the experience of these local methods, coupled with the chemical knowledge system brought by Zhu Kezang, how can the chemical industry of Ming Dynasty not make rapid progress?
Taking advantage of the volatility of nitric acid and the dehydration of concentrated sulfuric acid, the other end of the condensation tube will soon produce a light yellow liquid concentrated nitric acid at the bottom of the bottle.

It's just that the green vitriol and saltpeter are not cheap, and Zhu Kezang needs to use extremely pure raw materials, so this little nitric acid cost nearly ten taels of silver, but it cannot be used in large-scale industrial production.

On the other side, the ace guard Shen Cheng was leading hundreds of soldiers of the Guards, repeatedly scrubbing the cotton with warm water.

These soldiers are all gentle, but they don't let go of any corner of the cotton ball, they are more meticulous than bathing their own children.

Pour off the water that has washed the cotton ball immediately, and wash it with new water.

Each sack of cotton has to be washed more than ten or twenty times, and then twisted and placed on the "soil kang" in the house to dry.

All because a lot of oil and impurities are stuck on the cotton fiber, which will seriously interfere with the nitrification process.

Zhu Kezang didn't know how to purify cotton fibers, and the only way he could think of right now was to wash them repeatedly.

The next day.

Zhu Kezang personally put the shiny cotton into concentrated nitric acid and kept the temperature constant with cold water.

Huang Luzhuang stood aside and counted the time, while another person kept his eyes on the cotton, holding the thermometer invented by Huang Luzhuang, and recorded the experimental data.

A quarter of an hour, that is, 15 minutes, is the nitrification time.

"time up."

As soon as Huang Luzhuang made a sound, someone immediately took out the "cotton ball" with a clip according to Zhu Kezang's prior instructions, and quickly put it in a jar of wine.

The things taken out of nitric acid look like yellowed old cotton, but they may spontaneously ignite in an environment of more than 40 degrees, and then detonate other parts, so they must be stored in alcohol.

Then everyone came to the clearing that had been delineated with great interest, holding the newly made "explosives".

With a desperate mentality, the soldiers of the Guards lit the kindling, and then desperately ran to the back of the "bunker" half a mile away, huddled together with the crowd.

For a long time, everyone did not hear the expected explosion.

Zhu Kezang quickly put away the binoculars, shook his head in disappointment and said, "No, adjust the configuration parameters and start over."

In the binoculars just now, the ball of "cotton" burst into flames, and disappeared completely in a moment, but there was no smoke and no residue, and there was a shadow of smokeless gunpowder, but it was far from enough.

(End of this chapter)