Chapter 1312 - Silicon Steel Work
"These are the results of my project."
At the Science and Technology Department's project results briefing, Ge Xinxin presented all her experimental results to several transmigrators from the Science and Technology Department and the industrial sector using an overhead projector. This included atomic spectra she had photographed of various samples.
"The direct benefit is that it can be used for qualitative analysis of the vast majority of metallic and metalloid elements, as well as semi-quantitative analysis of trace and semi-trace major metallic elements. Moreover, aside from baseline reagents, all equipment and consumables are based on finished products that Lingao can provide in this timeline—at most requiring further purification. This can greatly extend the lifespan of the equipment we brought while also reducing costs."
Although Dr. Zhong sat in the central chair, he didn't fully understand the entire experimental process. So he maintained absolute silence, letting the industrial sector people raise questions first—several were clearly eager to do so.
As if anticipating what they might ask, Ge Xinxin continued:
"Of course, problems exist. Currently, the glass plates we can manufacture have inconsistent reproducibility between batches. Sensitivity and so forth must be individually calibrated each time, and they cannot be stored long-term—they must be made fresh for each use. Moreover, semi-quantitative analysis depends on obtaining high-purity standard samples. The baseline reagents we brought can't last forever; we must prepare our own spectroscopic-grade baseline reagents. This poses considerable difficulty for our still-weak organic chemistry industry. My current choice of sodium ferrocyanide isn't ideal, but it can serve as a makeshift substitute. Therefore, we can currently only do trace and semi-trace semi-quantitative analysis, unable to achieve parts-per-billion analysis or fully quantitative analysis. And for some elements it cannot be used at all. Roughly speaking, I've only provided a method and possibility—putting it into practical application capable of supporting industry on a large scale will require further equipment improvements—"
"Let's not talk about that for now," Lin Hanlong from the Optical Factory interjected. "What I'm concerned about is what you're going to do about the chemical agents for your developer and fixer? Looking at your experimental report, you used existing stocks. Is there sustainability?"
"The developer solution I prepared uses metol, hydroquinone, borax, and sodium sulfite—four chemical agents. The fixer uses sodium thiosulfate, and acetic acid is used during rinsing. All these chemicals are on the Chemical Department's self-produced chemicals list. Supply should be sustainable."
She explained that according to papers on chemical production she had read in Nature and Science magazine and the product catalog provided by the Chemical sector: among these agents, sodium sulfite, sodium thiosulfate, and acetic acid were all commonly used products that current chemical plants could produce domestically. Metol and hydroquinone were trickier to source—they came from coal chemical processing, fractionated from coal tar, and only crude products could be obtained.
"...With our current capabilities, refining them is somewhat difficult. But using them for developing and fixing isn't a major problem. Of course, this will inevitably lead to interference from cloudiness and such, but that's something we'll have to accept."
"I feel this development's significance for us isn't especially great..." Ji Wusheng said. "There are still missing links that are hard to fill. And it's not as convenient as photoelectric instruments." The steel industry head habitually picked up a towel and wiped his forehead—though there wasn't actually a drop of sweat on it. "I do think it's necessary to set up a laboratory within our steel plant. Sending samples by train is still a bit troublesome—especially melt samples."
"If this technology is successfully developed, spectroscopic testing can be popularized to every factory that needs elemental composition analysis." Seeing her achievement hadn't generated a great response, Ge Xinxin couldn't help feeling her pearl had been cast before swine. "Besides, in the future, steel and non-ferrous metal enterprises will inevitably spring up everywhere. The Planning Commission can't possibly equip every factory with a spectrometer."
"That's true," Ji Wusheng conceded. "I have no objections—as long as it works. Right now the industrial sector is asking us to produce various alloys; having this foundation will help a lot."
"I have no objections either," Ji Situi added. "It's just that with your work, Ge Xinxin, the burden on our Chemical sector has grown heavier again."
"Steel is the skeleton of modern industry; the chemical industry is its blood and flesh." Ge Xinxin smiled. "Naturally it's of the utmost importance."
This flattery hit just the right note. Seeing smiles appear on several faces, Ge Xinxin immediately struck while the iron was hot and returned to her main topic.
"The next improvement plan is to replace the Bunsen burner with an oxyhydrogen torch. The Bunsen burner's temperature is too low, and coal gas contains many impurities that easily interfere with the spectrum. Of course, the most ideal would still be the arc method—after all, an oxyhydrogen flame as an excitation source has its own spectral characteristics, and the temperature isn't high enough."
"Putting together the equipment for the arc method—I'd say maybe three to five years, who knows if that'll work," Zhan Wuya said.
"Where there's hope, there's motivation." Ge Xinxin replied. "I have another idea for everyone to consider."
Her proposal was to establish a specialized chemical reagent workshop specifically to provide chemical reagents, chemicals, and various consumables for the laboratories. Currently, many of the chemicals and reagents used in chemical analyses performed by the various laboratories were already being replaced with products manufactured by chemical factories of this timeline. However, these products generally had problems with insufficient concentration and excessive impurities. Therefore, the various laboratories had no choice but to re-purify chemical reagents themselves before use, consuming large amounts of manpower and resources.
"...Right now a lot of our basic reagent preparation work has to be done ourselves—even distilled water has to be prepared in-house. The time and energy consumed is too great. And as laboratories multiply in the future, some new laboratories probably won't have the capability to purify chemicals. Also, the developer and fixer solutions from this project should have a certain reserve stock. So I suggest centralizing equipment, scaling up somewhat, and having a transmigrator in charge of specifically preparing these products."
"This could work," Ji Situi said. He had had similar thoughts before but managed too many things to follow up. "But there's no suitable transmigrator at the moment..."
"If you don't mind my volunteering, I'm willing to take charge of this work," Ge Xinxin said without hesitation.
"Oh?" Ji Situi was a bit caught off guard. This wasn't exactly a good job—both exhausting and quite dangerous. "Alright, since you're willing, I don't see why not—though this still needs Planning Commission approval."
After the meeting ended, Ji Wusheng took the commuter train back to his office at the Ma'ao Steel Complex. It was located in the complex's office area, standing alone in the middle of a circular red-brick plaza. In front of the small building stood a model of blast furnace tapping, cast from pig iron.
As usual, employees of the steel complex were hurrying across the plaza. They wore the steel works' uniform black work clothes—the special color exclusive to the steel complex. Colored identification strips on their arms marked their department, while name and number tags were sewn to their chests.
Ji Wusheng strode into the office and asked the on-duty secretary in "Ji's Office" about current production status.
"According to the production dispatch room's report from an hour ago, everything is normal," the secretary reported.
"Good." Ji Wusheng walked into his office. Unlike other transmigrators' offices, his floor had no wooden flooring—just simple terrazzo. Despite the secretary's frequent cleaning, the floor was always dirty, and the walls always had black smudges. Workshop technicians and workers were often called to his office to discuss problems and report on work. He himself also frequently had to go to the workshops, to the blast furnace—inevitably tracking slag and dust everywhere.
On the coat rack by his desk hung the work clothes and safety helmet he used when visiting workshops. The work clothes pocket still contained a pair of steelworker's protective goggles.
Ji Wusheng sat down in his rattan chair. He vaguely understood why the Planning Commission had notified him to attend this meeting: everyone was working hard on research breakthroughs, paving the way for materials science. As the person in charge of the steel enterprise, surely you should produce some results too.
Indeed, elemental composition analysis was extremely important for smelting silicon steel and other specialty steels. But silicon steel had been produced in this world long before spectrometers existed, relying on nothing more than chemical analysis. Having spectral analysis was certainly more precise than simple chemical analysis, but that alone was far from enough. Smelting silicon steel was a very complex undertaking. Although at the previous industrial departments meeting he had given a one-month deadline for silicon steel trials—and he could indeed smelt silicon steel, with no difficulty regarding raw materials—Ji Wusheng had no certainty about what kind of silicon steel he could actually produce.
In old-timeline China, it wasn't until 1954 that the first heat of hot-rolled silicon steel was produced—that showed how technically difficult this was. According to its position on the technology tree, this was a node that hadn't been lit until the late 19th or early 20th century. For Lingao's industry to light it early would be very difficult.
Ji Wusheng and several transmigrators with steelmaking knowledge had specifically researched this problem: electric arc smelting of silicon steel was out of the question. As for Ge Xinxin's proposal to first smelt silicon and then steel, he didn't see that as necessary either. Many transmigrators in the industrial sector weren't confident silicon could even be smelted using copper as a reducing agent. Moreover, new processes and new products would inevitably require adding more equipment.
The research conclusion was still to directly smelt ferrosilicon first, then use it to smelt silicon steel, then hot-roll it into sheets. Performance couldn't be picky, but at least it would be better than using low-carbon steel directly.
For smelting ferrosilicon, someone had mentioned using the crucible method, but after discussion, several people felt a crucible probably couldn't achieve sufficient temperature. Besides, crucible capacity was too small—fine for smelting small amounts of specialty steel, but too small for ferrosilicon, which was needed in larger quantities.
(End of Chapter)