Chapter 249: Chemical Plant (3)

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The merged equipment included the two sets of electrolytic cells from Workshop 3.

Electrolytic cells are essential for producing many chemical products. Electrolyzing salt water yields caustic soda, chlorine, and hydrogen; electrolytic oxidation can produce various chlorates, permanganates, and persulfates.

Additionally, the wet method of electrolysis can refine metallic copper, silver, gold, and platinum. The electroplated and electropolished samples in the workshop were also achieved through aqueous solution electrolysis.

With Workshop 3, the Transmigrators could unleash a latent money-draining beast: the mirror.

As early as the 16th century, before the Transmigrators appeared, the Venetians had already invented the cylinder method for making plate glass, and simultaneously invented the tin-amalgam method of adhering tin foil to glass using mercury to make mirrors... This 2.0 version of the mirror gradually reduced the prevalence of traditional metal mirrors.

Historically, making mirrors with silver nitrate had to wait until 1835, when the German chemist Liebig appeared. He mixed silver nitrate with a reducing agent, causing the silver nitrate to precipitate silver, which then adhered to the glass, creating the 3.0 version of the mirror. As for the true electroplated silver mirror, it would take nearly another 100 years before the British invented that technology.

But now that Workshop 3 has been established, the Transmigrators can soon use the electroplating method to manufacture the 4.0 version of the modern mirror.

After shooing away the troublemaking group led by the Emperor, Hong Xu, under the admiring gazes of the other three chemistry dogs, began assembling the workers to assign production tasks.

The Chemical Plant didn't have many workers.

Although Hong Xu could have three to five hundred people dispatched with just a word, that routine didn't work well in a chemical plant — in a place where turning the wrong valve could cause an accident, the more amateurs there were, the faster everyone would die.

Therefore, in the newly opened Chemical Plant, excluding those doing peripheral manual labor, there were only 32 people currently qualified to work on the production line.

Among these 32 people, 20 were ordinary workers, and then the 4 Transmigrators each took on 2 apprentices... There was no helping it; they were that shorthanded.

The ordinary workers had all been crudely selected during the earlier period of crude production. These people were naturally selected for their docile temperaments and good obedience — the careless, free-spirited types were either crippled or dead.

And the apprentices were even more precious.

Chemistry is an advanced science. For a person to even scratch the surface of chemistry, their foundational mathematics level had to at least reach graduation from the Academy.

Although the core education department of the Crossing Faction, the Academy, had now expanded to three branches, only a little over a year had passed since everyone landed, and large batches of students had yet to graduate.

Although the Transmigrator Academy had eliminated art class, music class, computer class, English class, and morality and life class; even so, it was impossible for students to graduate in mathematics within one year... Even if there were top students, they were young treasures kept for advanced studies and couldn't be used as technicians.

So the technician-type talent Hong Xu and the others needed could only be sought among literate Ming young attendants. This requirement was very stringent: older Ming people whose knowledge structures had already solidified were useless. What Hong Xu and the others needed were youths around sixteen or seventeen, passionate about learning, and also able to endure hardship in a factory.

Through preliminary screening in the Worker Study Rooms present in every Community, plus another great killer: the lure of high wages, Hong Xu and the others had at least managed to recruit a group of apprentices before the plant was built.

Before coming to Dayuan, most of these apprentices had been shop assistants and weavers from the Jiangnan region... The tidal disaster that occurred near Hangzhou at the end of July this year bankrupted large numbers of rural owner-farmers and the urban working class in the wealthy belt of Jiangnan.

And as the region with the highest literacy rate in the Great Ming, these refugees snatched and transported from the Jiangnan area allowed the various departments subordinate to the Transmigrators to enjoy a truly bountiful year.

It must be known that, as fellow workers, the quality of weaver households from the Jiangnan region far exceeded that of those mud-legged folk who only knew how to farm.

Many of these medieval-era workers could read and do arithmetic, understood cooperation, and could endure tedious industrial processes. With a little training, almost all of them could seamlessly integrate into the various factories subordinate to the Kiln District.

Among the 8 apprentices under Hong Xu and the others, half were sons of weaver households.

..... After assembling the workers and apprentices to re-emphasize the precautions once more, at Hong Xu's command, everyone donned the imported orange protective suits. Then everyone took their positions, started the equipment, ignited the Boiler, and began the Black Stone Gulch Chemical Plant's first trial production: sulfuric acid.

The production process for sulfuric acid was relatively simple and suitable for practice. Workers first dumped the bright Ming-yellow sulfur blocks transported from the Taipei Volcanic Group into the feed inlet; these sulfur blocks were then conveyed by belt into the sulfur melting tank.

The sulfur melting tank quickly heated the sulfur into a liquid and transported it to a storage tank. Throughout this process, 0.5 MPa steam accompanied it at all times to maintain the sulfur's liquid form.

After the liquid sulfur entered the tank, it was first pressurized by a refined sulfur pump, then atomized through a sulfur gun, and finally sprayed into the sulfur burning furnace.

The environment required inside the sulfur burning furnace was also very demanding: the air first had to be filtered, then pressurized by a blower, and undergo absorption and drying by concentrated sulfuric acid before being sent into the furnace chamber.

Next came a series of absorption and concentration procedures. The sulfur gas continuously circulated through the absorption tower and the oleum tower. After passing through circulation tanks, circulation pumps, and processes like spraying and concentration, the final product entering the storage tank was finished sulfuric acid with a concentration exceeding 98%.

The entire process flow, under the operation of the 4 Transmigrators, was completed without causing much disturbance. The Transmigrators, after all, came from the 21st century. Even on this simple sulfuric acid production line, various monitoring, temperature control, and automated management control terminals still existed; the operators didn't need to go to great lengths.

The finished sulfuric acid was ultimately loaded into some thick glass jars. This was probably the highest-tech support the Kiln District could currently offer the Chemical Plant; all that remained were those crude black reaction vessel stands and carts.

After the entire process was completed, Hong Xu and the others instantly transformed into teachers of the people, immediately beginning to lecture the workers at each post.

Hong Xu had no special requirements for the ordinary workers. These semi-illiterates had no concept of pressure, gas-liquid states, or pH values in their minds. They were essentially just like workers on later-generation assembly lines, only needing to complete a few fixed actions at their posts... In a word, just obediently follow orders. For them, following rules was the greatest success.

The focus was on those 8 apprentices.

These young men, being cultivated as future section chiefs, workshop directors, and plant managers, respectfully followed behind their teachers, shuttling through a sea of valves and pipelines, listening to incredibly detailed on-site lectures. They could raise questions at any time and receive tirelessly patient answers.

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