Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 418 Alkali Making

Autumn in Ping'an County has always been very pleasant, and this has been the case for thousands of years, until one day after the mysterious people from the east coast came here...

Inside and outside Ping'an County, in a small space, there are many chimneys and dusty nostrils. Even the air seems to be filled with the smell of gas, which impresses the first-timers.Faced with such severe environmental pollution, in order to avoid physical harm, Qian Hao, the magistrate of Ping'an County, even moved his office northward to Ping'an Fort, about 4 kilometers north of Ping'an Port Wharf, at the mouth of the Ping'an River.However, considering that Ping'an Fort is located in the current economic lifeline of the East Coast Republic of China - the General Administration of Textile Industry and Ping'an Machine Weaving Factory, and the surrounding area is a controlled area. It is very difficult for a large stall of people from the Ping'an County Government to come and go here. It was not easy to manage, so in April of the first half of this year, he moved the administrative office eastward to about ten kilometers east of the later Alvorada.

The scenery there is beautiful, with criss-cross rivers and lakes, shady trees, and fertile land, which is very suitable for the development of agriculture, animal husbandry and orchard economy.Therefore, after obtaining the consent of the Executive Committee, the Pingan County Government decided to establish a new town here as the new administrative seat of Pingan County.At present, this large castle with a city circumference of nearly 2000 meters, second only to Oriental Port, is under intense construction, and the name of the town is Liming Town (“Alvorada”, which means dawn in Portuguese).The county magistrate, Qian Hao, brought his administrative team to Liming Fort, which is still under construction, and started to apply for immigration to the higher authorities to develop agriculture, animal husbandry and orchards locally; and Liming Town was upgraded to the seat of Ping'an County. Later, the original Ping'an Town was renamed Ping'an Township, and it is still the only heavy industry center in China.

At the moment, in the most heavily polluted Ping'an Port Wharf Industrial Zone, a newly established factory is standing in the middle of large state-owned enterprises such as Ping'an Iron and Steel Factory, Coking Factory, Dye Factory, First Machinery Factory, and Northern Arsenal. The hanging wooden sign has five big characters written "Northern Soda Plant".Soda plant, as the name suggests, the products of the plant are all kinds of alkaline chemicals, more precisely, soda ash - the scientific name sodium carbonate.

The turmoil in the French cotton cloth market has spread from Bordeaux to China a few months ago, and the members of the executive committee attach great importance to this matter.Regardless of their various countermeasures, this incident also reminded the members of the Executive Committee: the single cotton cloth industry is doomed to be innately poor in the East Coast people's ability to resist risks.And just before that, the country has been consciously developing the leather processing industry to make full use of the very rich local sources of animal skins, but the pace of development has not been fast enough due to various factors such as manpower.As soon as this incident happened, people on the east bank immediately felt the crisis.Therefore, under the instruction of the Executive Committee, the Government Affairs Council took this turmoil as an opportunity to focus on planning and integrating the development of the leather processing industry.

To develop the leather processing industry, all kinds of chemicals needed in the previous process, that is, the tanning process, such as soda ash, sulfuric acid, alum (a substitute for potassium dichromate, the main component of chromium liquid), etc., are indispensable.Among them, the Dongan people have achieved large-scale industrial production of sulfuric acid. The first chemical plant in Ping'an Township uses the tower method to produce more than 76 tons of sulfuric acid with a purity of more than [-]% per year; In the state of a large amount of imports, it is impossible to make it yourself.Let’s not talk about alum, just talk about soda ash, which is definitely the most urgently needed chemical intermediate product for people on the east coast at the moment.

Soda ash is a substance that is in great demand in the fast-growing industrial system on the east coast. It is used in large quantities in steel, paper, printing and dyeing, leather, textiles, and the soap industry that is about to develop.In the past, people on the east coast partly used natural soda ash imported from Europe, and partly used substitutes such as lime water and plant ash to fool around.But now it is obviously not possible, such as printing and textiles, in order to compete with Europeans, in addition to price, we should also pay more attention to the improvement of product quality.In order to improve the quality, some non-standard procedures in the current processing process must be corrected. For example, it is best to use soda ash in the cotton degreasing process, and the same is true when tanning animal hides.Otherwise, if the quality of the product cannot be widened from that of Europe, it is not a very reliable thing to rely on price alone.

Under such circumstances, the Northern Soda Plant, which mainly manufactures soda ash, came into being.Due to the lack of methods for producing ammonia, the plant still uses the ancient Lublin method for the production of soda ash. Designed by Song Qiang, a former middle school teacher.The Lublin method was invented by the Frenchman Lublin in the 18th century. The equipment and conditions required for production are very low. It can even be said that there is basically no need for any special equipment, and the local method can be used.

The first step in making soda ash by the Lublin method is to react table salt (sodium chloride) with concentrated sulfuric acid to obtain sodium sulfate.Regarding sodium sulfate, the North Soda Plant can directly ask the No. [-] Chemical Plant in Jushu Township for it. They have been producing some sodium sulfate stably, and the hydrogen chloride gas obtained during the reaction has also used a spray absorption tower— - just like the absorption tower in the production process of sulfuric acid - to absorb hydrochloric acid.At present, Song Qiang is the director of the No. [-] Chemical Plant and the Northern Soda Plant, and it is not a problem at all to transfer some finished products to the Soda Plant.

Once you have sodium sulfate, you can heat it with dry-distilled charcoal and limestone.In this process, it is necessary to design a heating furnace to make sodium sulfate react with charcoal by heating the air in the furnace or simply passing hot air to produce the intermediate product sodium sulfide that everyone needs.After generating sodium sulfide, it will also react with limestone in the heating furnace to generate calcium sulfide and the final product we need - sodium carbonate (soda ash).

Of course, the final product produced by the reaction in the heating furnace is actually a mixture with complex components, including soda ash, unreacted charcoal and by-product calcium sulfide, of which soda ash accounts for more than 40%.This purity is obviously not enough, so further purification is needed at this time.Since charcoal and calcium sulfide are insoluble in water, but soda ash is soluble in water, it is easy to handle.The black charcoal inside is less dense than water and basically floats on the surface of the water, while the calcium sulfide precipitates at the bottom of the water. After these two substances are removed, sodium carbonate is precipitated by crystallization. At this time, the usable finished product is obtained.

From this, we can see that Lublin is very suitable for the existing industrial level on the east coast, and can be launched in an indigenous way.As long as you know the principle, there are no obstacles at all in terms of technology and equipment.In fact, the same is true. The North Soda Plant has tried several times in July. The purity of the sodium carbonate obtained during the last successful production has reached more than 7%, which fully meets the purity requirements required for industrial production. .With these high-purity sodium carbonate, the large amount of soda ash required by domestic light industries such as papermaking, tanning, glass, printing and dyeing, and textiles, as well as basic heavy industries such as iron and steel metallurgy, can be completely localized.You know, just one Pingan Iron and Steel Plant consumes about 96 tons of soda ash (desulfurization) every year. If the leather industry is to expand in the future, the soda ash required for the process of tanning animal hides will be even greater.Now that the northern soda plant has been successfully put into operation, the country has saved a lot of money for importing soda ash from Europe. Therefore, science and technology are really the primary productive forces.

The development of the chemical industry in the past two years has been limited by the lack of talents, and the development has been relatively slow, but it is still determined, one step at a time.Potassium nitrate was first produced by going to the horse nitrate field by the native method, and then the first chemical plant used the native method to produce concentrated sulfuric acid, and then there were inorganic drugs such as sodium sulfate and ferrous sulfide, and now there is a product prepared from sodium sulfate. Soda Ash - Sodium Carbonate.The whole production system has been carried out step by step, step by step, not only built some factories, but also cultivated a large number of talents.

According to the arrangement of the Institute of Chemistry of the Academy of Natural Sciences, they may have to start a production line for caustic soda-sodium hydroxide this year and next, depending on the situation.Now that sodium carbonate can be produced industrially, it is logical to produce some caustic soda by reacting it with lime water (calcium hydroxide) for use.Sodium hydroxide, one of the three acids and two bases, is also an extremely important chemical raw material. With it, soap can be produced in the next step.The principle is roughly that oil and caustic soda produce saponification reaction to generate soap.This is a profitable tool. You must know that in Europe at this time, soap is a luxury that only nobles can afford.

Once the East Coast people are able to industrially produce soap on a large scale and lower its exorbitant price so that more people can afford it, then this will definitely be another cash cow for the East Coast people besides textiles.However, when to launch a product like soap requires overall consideration, mainly political and economic considerations, that is, should we rush to launch such a profitable tool that is likely to attract people's envy before we have a strong self-protection capability? It is necessary to consider whether European countries can tolerate a large outflow of their domestic silver.This is not alarmist talk. Historically, in order to buy a large amount of grain from Poland, merchants often needed to apply to the king to allow the outflow of precious metals so that they could pay the Polish grain in time.

Of course, the above are all matters that the executive committee needs to consider. The technical bureaucrats of the Institute of Chemistry do not need to do those miscellaneous things. They only need to do the technical work well, just like the soda ash production in front of them. Same.When the Executive Committee thinks that it is time to start the soap project, they will naturally ask them to start the production line. If the Executive Committee thinks that the current timing is not very suitable, then they can only rest temporarily.Of course, it is not impossible to prepare some high-grade soaps (such as whale oil soap) privately for the people of Taoism and their families to enjoy, but this is another matter.

(End of this chapter)