African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 999 New Alkali Process

In turn, the aluminum semi-finished products from Xinde are transported by rail and water to the cities of Beira and Tete for further processing to be made into daily necessities and electrical equipment parts, forming an industrial closed loop.

Of course, if East Africa wanted to, it could have deployed related industries in the town of Shindai, and it did so. However, the Zambia River estuary where the town of Shindai is located does not have the same advantages as other river estuaries. Shipping is a big problem, and the extraction and preliminary processing of bauxite are highly polluting, especially the pollution of water sources. Therefore, it is not suitable to build a large city there. The cities of Beira and Tete, which are closest to Shindai, have undertaken a large amount of subsequent processing work.

The potential of the town of Hinde is still good, but if it wants to be developed, East Africa must comprehensively develop and manage the Zambezi River. This is also the main reason restricting the development of the town of Hinde. Although the Zambezi River is the second largest river in East Africa, its navigation conditions are too poor. At least from Hinde, it is only navigable to the city of Tete. This level has no advantage compared with some rivers in the coastal plains of East Africa.

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XNUM X Year X NUM X Month.

When East Africa's First Five-Year Plan was in full swing, the East African Ministry of Science and Technology came to the University of Nairobi for an inspection. A new technology was born here, which attracted the attention of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The school's scientific research team received the personnel from the Ministry of Science and Technology. The head of the scientific research project team, Professor Robben, and his students conquered a new alkali production process.

Robben: "my country's alkali industry started in the 1980s. Although we introduced a set of equipment in the 1970s, the output was low due to the lack of relevant talents. It was not until the 1980s that my country recruited a large number of technicians and workers from Europe and built alkali factories in Mbeya and other places."

East Africa began its initial industrial construction phase in the 1970s, which can be said to be quite bumpy. Although a large number of equipment were introduced by taking advantage of the economic crisis at the time, due to the shortage of technical personnel, many industrial equipment could not be put into production and maintenance was difficult.

However, the situation in East Africa was better than that in the Far East Empire at that time. Although East Africa itself lacked relevant talents and technologies, it had the technical guidance of the Heixingen Group.

The Hexingen Consortium’s role in East Africa’s early industrial construction can be said to have been that of the Soviet Union in the First Five-Year Plan of the Far Eastern Empire.

The Hexingen Group has a large number of companies under its umbrella, so it can relatively easily obtain technology and professional talent. On this basis, East African industry was able to develop with some bumps in the 1970s.

Without this premise, no matter how many industrial equipment East Africa introduced in the past 70 years, it would be equivalent to spending money to buy a pile of scrap metal.

Fortunately, in the 1980s, East Africa introduced a large number of technical personnel from Europe and the United States. With the development of education in East Africa and the return of overseas students, East African industry stabilized. In the 1990s, East African industry developed further and became more mature in terms of capital, technology, labor and other fields.

The alkali industry in East Africa also experienced significant development in the 1990s. Currently, East Africa is self-sufficient in soda ash production and can also export some of it.

The special industrial and social conditions in East Africa have led to a relatively strong demand for soda ash. This starts with the uses of soda ash.

Robben introduced: "Soda ash, commonly known as soda, is chemically composed of sodium carbonate. It is widely present in nature and distributed all over the world. It is divided into heavy alkali and light alkali according to its density.

According to the use, soda ash is divided into industrial grade soda ash and food grade soda ash. Industrial grade soda ash is one of the main raw materials for flat glass. It can also be used as a smelting solvent, a flotation agent for mineral processing, and a desulfurizer for steelmaking. In the textile field, soda ash can act as a water softener in the textile production process.

Food grade soda ash can be used as a pasta additive to act as a neutralizer, leavening agent, buffer, and dough improver, increasing the taste and flexibility of pasta. It can also be used as an auxiliary additive in the production of monosodium glutamate and soy sauce.

In addition to general uses, the importance of soda ash to the glass industry and detergent industry is an important driving force for the development of the soda ash industry in East Africa. In this time and space, for the development of the automobile industry, under the guidance of Ernst, the first industrial mass-produced flat glass was produced in East Africa. The early emphasis on sanitary conditions in East Africa also destined East African society to attach importance to detergent products.

For example, the cleaning work of early East African immigrants required a large amount of products imported from Europe, which made the cost much higher. Therefore, East Africa has attached great importance to the alkali industry since the colonial era.

"At present, the Lubrense process is the main method used in my country's alkali industry, which is also the most mature and largest-scale alkali process in Europe."

"Of course, now the world's alkali industry is transitioning to the Solvay process, but my country acquired the Solvay process relatively late because of the blockade of the Solvay process by major powers. It was not until after the South African War that our relationship with Germany was further improved and we were able to obtain the relevant technology."

The Solvay process is the mainstream trend in the current alkali industry and is also monopolized by the major powers. It was born in the last century (late 19s), so the East African industry at that time could only introduce the earlier Lubrense process.

Initially, soda ash was mainly extracted from plants. In Europe, the alkali was extracted from juice soaked in seaweed ash.

However, after the Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the mid-18th century, the amount of alkali required by industries such as textiles, printing and dyeing, papermaking, soap making and glass increased dramatically. The alkali extracted from natural alkali and plant ash alone was obviously insufficient, so artificial production was required.

Later, under the heavy reward of the French government, the Frenchman Leblanc made the first breakthrough, and the Leblanc alkali production process came into being. In addition to salt, the raw materials used in the Leblanc alkali production process also include sulfuric acid, charcoal and limestone.

This alkali production process has continued to this day and is used in European countries and East Africa. It will take more than ten years for the Solvay process to completely replace the Rübl process.

Due to various reasons, the most advanced Solvay process currently accounts for a very small proportion in East Africa's alkali industry. Just as East Africa was preparing to vigorously promote the Solvay process, East Africa also made major technological breakthroughs in its own alkali industry.

The emergence of the new alkali production process in East Africa is different from the Lubrense process and the Sauville process. The fundamental reason for its emergence is the resource advantages of East Africa.

The specific details of the new East African alkali production method are actually to refine the alkali minerals existing in nature, rather than chemically synthesizing them with other raw materials like the previous two.

This brings us to the distribution of natural alkali minerals in the world. Generally, alkali minerals are mostly found in surface alkali lakes and exposed deposits, mainly in North America, East Asia, Turkey, and most parts of Africa.

The Egyptian Soda Valley is a world-renowned natural soda mine, and the ancient Egyptians were one of the first people to use soda ash.

There are a large number of natural soda ash mines in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and other regions in the East African Rift Valley, and Botswana in southern East Africa, so the natural soda ash resources in East Africa are very rich.

The new alkali production method in East Africa was developed by the Chemical Research Laboratory of the University of Nairobi. They used local alkali mines for refining, thus obtaining a new alkali production process, which is actually the natural alkali method mainly used in the United States in later generations.

Professor Robben said in a somewhat Versailles way: "The new alkali production process actually does not have much technical content. It can only be regarded as an accidental discovery of mine. In the end, the experiment was successful. Its main application method is to use the abundant alkali mines in East Africa to directly refine soda ash. Moreover, this method is cheaper than the current mainstream alkali production process in the world. If it can be implemented on a large scale, it will undoubtedly make a huge contribution to my country's alkali production industry."

(End of this chapter)