Chapter 49: A Chemical Conversation on the City Railway

“Of course, of course,” Wu Nanhai said with a knowing look.

After a brief but grand groundbreaking ceremony, Ma Qianzhu symbolically pulled the switch to start the process. A string of two thousand firecrackers went off, and with the cheers of the crowd, the ceremony was over. There were no students from the Fangcao Primary School to liven things up, nor was there a banquet or any other “atmosphere-enhancing” activities.

Recently, the Senate General Office had issued a notice on “practicing diligence and frugality and opposing extravagance and waste,” requiring all departments and senators to reduce unnecessary celebratory ceremonies and official entertainment expenses. As a result, the scene was much smaller. However, the customary tour after the groundbreaking ceremony was unavoidable.

Tours and study sessions were the most effective means of indoctrination, so the Senate never missed such a golden opportunity. This group of Tiandihui clients had already tried a small amount of chemical fertilizer and had experienced the magical effects of this “fertilizer powder.” Hearing that this factory specialized in producing “fertilizer powder,” they were all eager to see how it was made. Full of excitement, they followed Ji Tui Si on a tour of the modern fertilizer production facility.

The Lingao First Fertilizer Plant had a grand name and occupied a large plot of land, but currently, only a 10,000-ton ordinary superphosphate and a 4,000-ton supporting sulfuric acid project had been completed. There was still a large amount of vacant land in the factory area, reserved for future new projects.

The superphosphate production line required a large amount of sulfuric acid. Based on an annual production capacity of 10,000 tons, it needed 3,800 tons of sulfuric acid per year. This much sulfuric acid could not be transported from the current sulfuric acid plant and the coking plant, as the chemical industry lacked containers for safe, long-distance, large-volume transport. Secondly, the three acids and two alkalis were basic chemical products, so the more production capacity, the better. Although the sulfuric acid plant and the coking plant could produce a large amount of sulfuric acid, it was needed in many places. It was more appropriate for a fertilizer plant, which required a stable year-round supply, to have its own supporting facilities.

The superphosphate production line consisted of three workshops: a 14×7 square meter drying workshop, a 14×10 square meter conversion workshop, and a 24.5×10 square meter packaging workshop. It had 10 sets of equipment, including a 30-square-meter drying pit, a 2.5-square-meter vibrating screen, a semi-continuous conversion chamber, a hoist, a high-level sulfuric acid tank, and a mixing pot. The plant had a staff of 150 and occupied an area of 0.264 hectares.

This project required 5,600 tons of phosphate rock annually, so the Planning Institute specially arranged for a 200-ton transport ship to travel to and from the Paracel Islands to transport guano. Moreover, the original 10-degree power consumption per ton was completely replaced by steam engine power, which also required several thousand tons of coal supply each year.

The 3,800 tons of sulfuric acid raw material were provided by the supporting 4,000-ton sulfuric acid workshop. The sulfuric acid workshop occupied an area of 33×16 square meters and had a staff of 50. It required 4,892 tons of pyrite annually, for which a 200-ton transport ship was also specially assigned to transport it from the Shangen Pyrite Mine in Wanning. The annual 440,000-kilowatt-hours of electricity needed to be converted into corresponding steam power, consuming an estimated 4,000 tons of coal. In addition, it required 400,000 tons of industrial water annually.

The visitors watched the huge steel machines continuously operate, the pungent smell of sulfur filling the air. Piles of gray-white rocks and dust were constantly fed into the giant mouths of steel, ultimately becoming “fertilizer powder” that could increase crop yields. The composting and other methods promoted by the Tiandihui were somewhat understandable to them; after all, compost was a type of farm manure. But the idea of increasing production with just stone powder was beyond their comprehension.

Everyone was deeply shaken, thinking about how the leaders manipulated immense power and solid iron, seizing the secrets of creation. Their hearts were filled not only with reverence and awe but also with greater hope for Lingao’s bright future. They were also full of confidence in their own and their families’ futures.

But for Ji Si Tui, the current situation was not beautiful at all. Industrial upgrading required chemical products in many areas, from equipment manufacturing, military industry, agriculture, medicine… almost every field made various demands on the chemical industry. However, the chemical industry could meet few of these demands at present, and even for those it could produce, there was often a problem of insufficient production capacity.

This was primarily due to material limitations. Chemical production equipment required many corrosion-resistant materials and special steels, which their current metallurgical industry was basically unable to provide. They had to widely use ceramics and glass as manufacturing materials for many chemical equipment. Although these two materials had good corrosion resistance and were widely available, their mechanical properties and processability were limited. They could only be used to manufacture some small equipment and components as substitutes. This also meant that most of Lingao’s newly built chemical enterprises were essentially scaled-up laboratory productions.

Moreover, the Chemical Department was short of manpower: chemical plants were highly polluting, with many industrial accidents, and hundreds of people were killed or injured in various accidents every year.

Needless to say, the appearance of the dead and injured was horrific. Under the current medical standards in Lingao, most of the injured in chemical accidents did not survive, and those who were barely saved were moderately to severely disabled.

Despite strict measures to block news of accidents and provide generous treatment, many naturalized citizens who knew a little about the situation were reluctant to work in chemical plants. They could only assign indentured servants with no personal freedom to work in chemical enterprises. If it weren’t for the large number of indentured servants brought in by Operation Engine, his plan to expand the workforce would have been difficult to implement immediately.

Ji Si Tui was troubled by the huge demand, inferior equipment, untrained workers, frequent accidents, and intermittent supply of raw materials, which had given him white hair.

After touring the production line and letting the Tiandihui clients go their separate ways, Wu Nanhai and Ji Tui Si took the “city railway” back to Bairen City.

Wu Nanhai, seeing that Ji Si Tui’s expression was relatively relaxed, took out a “Chuqing Limited Edition” cigar and handed it over, taking the opportunity to say, “Old Ji, I hear that the production of ammonium bicarbonate is relatively simple, as long as you have anthracite coal, and it’s more suitable for the acidic soil here than ammonium sulfate. Do you think you can set up a dedicated line for it next? We have a big gap in nitrogen fertilizer now…”

“Old Wu, do you think we haven’t thought about this? Back in the day, many small fertilizer plants were set up to produce ammonium bicarbonate. We have no problem with the supply of anthracite coal now. But the problem has come full circle,” Ji Tui Si said, lighting his cigar and speaking eloquently. “Our 800-ton synthetic ammonia plant uses the Hou’s process, which is common in small nitrogen fertilizer plants. Otherwise, where do you think the ammonium bicarbonate we provide you now comes from?”

The current 800-ton synthetic ammonia production project at the chemical plant used the Hou’s process, invented by Hou Debang in 1958. The synthesis process used anthracite coal as a raw material to first produce semi-water gas. After desulfurization, the gas entered a pressurized conversion reaction system to obtain a mixed gas of nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide. The mixed gas entered a carbonation tower, where the carbon dioxide reacted with a 17% concentration of ammonia water to form ammonium bicarbonate crystals, which were then separated by a centrifuge to obtain the ammonium bicarbonate product.

After the removal of carbon dioxide, the raw material gas underwent further removal of residual carbon dioxide and a small amount of carbon monoxide before entering the ammonia synthesis system to produce ammonia water.

Ammonia water could either enter the carbonation tower to produce ammonium bicarbonate or be sold as a raw material for the production of other chemical products.

This combined process could also produce a small amount of sulfuric acid and was a low-energy, multi-output production method.

Wu Nanhai was greatly disappointed. “So it’s still a problem of the scale of synthetic ammonia production.”

“That’s right,” Ji Tui Si said. “Without synthetic ammonia, we either have to find a stable channel to import saltpeter from the mainland, which is unlikely. Even if the Ming Dynasty doesn’t care and the roads are clear, the production capacity of this era is unlikely to meet our needs. Or we establish a trans-Pacific sea route for Chilean saltpeter now…”

“That’s even more impossible,” Wu Nanhai shook his head. “We’d have to establish our own mining sites.”

“Exactly. So there’s only one last option: to quickly unlock the technology tree for self-produced synthetic ammonia equipment and expand production capacity,” Ji Tui Si said meaningfully. “Equipment manufacturing is still the foundation of everything.”

“You’re right,” Wu Nanhai said. “I think everyone understands this. It should be brought up more often at meetings.”

Ji Tui Si smiled. “Let’s not talk about the equipment problem for now. Let’s talk about the 4,000-ton sulfuric acid supporting project in this factory. The plan is to use pyrite, which requires 5,000 tons a year. But the Shangen Pyrite Mine in Wanning County that we can currently mine has a historical maximum annual output of only a little over a thousand tons. That’s not even enough for the current sulfuric acid plant. Even if the Shangen Pyrite Mine immediately reaches its historical maximum production capacity next year, I still don’t know where to find the additional five thousand tons…”

Wu Nanhai broke out in a cold sweat. If the sulfuric acid support was insufficient, wouldn’t his annual ten thousand tons of ordinary superphosphate be in vain? He quickly asked:

“Are there no other pyrite mines in Hainan?”

“There are, but they are difficult to mine and transport. They don’t have the superior conditions of Shangen: you can dig it out by the sea and transport it directly to the sea by rail car for loading onto ships,” Ji Tui Si said, smoking his cigar. “The Planning Institute’s opinion is to first expand the mining of the Shangen Pyrite Mine, and then import natural sulfur from Taiwan…”

Like the Ryukyu Islands and the Japanese archipelago, Taiwan has a large amount of natural sulfur mines due to its relatively active geological activity. It was already an important export commodity during the Qing Dynasty.

“It wouldn’t be bad if we could transport a large amount of natural sulfur. Our agriculture also has a great demand for sulfur.”

“It’s mainly a matter of transport capacity and manpower. Speaking of Taiwan, Hualien has a large amount of serpentine. If we can mine and transport it back on a large scale, we can use the blast furnace method to produce calcium-magnesium-phosphate fertilizer, which is much simpler than superphosphate and doesn’t require a supporting sulfuric acid project…”

“Taiwan is truly a blessed land.”

…

The two of them talked animatedly all the way. Soon they arrived at their respective stations. When Wu Nanhai returned to the office of the Agricultural Committee, it was already three in the afternoon. He sat down, took out a black-covered secret memorandum from a locked drawer, which he used to record some more sensitive and important matters, and wrote a passage in it.