Chapter 101: Silicon Steel Work

“This is the result of my project.”

At the project results reporting meeting of the Ministry of Science and Technology, facing the Elders from the Ministry of Science and Technology and the industrial sector, Ge Xinxin presented all her experimental results using a glass slide projector. This included the atomic spectra of several samples she had photographed.

“The direct benefit is that it can be used for the qualitative analysis of most metallic and semi-metallic elements, and the semi-quantitative analysis of major metallic elements in trace and semi-micro amounts. And except for the reference reagents, all equipment and consumables are based on finished products that can be provided by Lin’gao in this time, at most requiring further purification. This can greatly extend the life of the equipment we brought and at the same time reduce costs.”

Although Dr. Zhong was sitting in the center chair, he did not fully understand the entire experimental process. So he maintained absolute silence, letting the people from the industrial sector talk about the problems first—it seemed that several people were already eager to try.

As if aware of what questions the other party might raise, Ge Xinxin continued:

“Of course, there are also problems. At present, the reproducibility between different batches of glass plates we can manufacture is insufficient. We must calibrate the sensitivity and other parameters separately each time, and they cannot be stored for a long time; they must be made as needed. Moreover, semi-quantitative analysis relies on obtaining high-purity standard samples. The reference reagents we brought cannot last long, so we must produce our own spectrally pure reference reagents. This is quite difficult for our still weak organic chemical industry. My choice of sodium ferrocyanide is not an ideal one, but it can be used as a substitute for now. Therefore, we can only do trace and semi-micro semi-quantitative analysis at present, not trace analysis and quantitative analysis. And it cannot be used for some elements. Generally speaking, it only provides a method and a possibility. It is still difficult to provide large-scale support for industry in practical application and requires further improvement of the equipment—”

“Let’s not talk about this for now,” Lin Hanlong from the optical factory asked. “I’m concerned about the chemical agents for your developer and fixer. Looking at your experimental report, you used existing stock. Is it sustainable?”

“In my experiment, I used metol, hydroquinone, borax, and sodium sulfite to prepare the developer, and sodium thiosulfate for the fixer, with acetic acid for washing. These chemicals are all on the list of self-produced chemicals from the chemical department. It should be said that continuous supply is not a problem.”

She explained that according to the papers on chemical production she had seen in Nature and Science and the product catalog provided by the chemical sector, among these chemicals, sodium sulfite, sodium thiosulfate, and acetic acid were common chemicals that the current chemical plant could self-produce. The sources of metol and hydroquinone were more troublesome. They were produced from the fractional distillation of coal tar by the coal chemical industry, but only crude products could be obtained.

“…With our current capabilities, refining them is a bit difficult. But it’s not a big problem for developing and fixing. Of course, this will inevitably lead to interference like cloudiness, but we have to accept it.”

“I feel that the significance of this successful development is not particularly great for us…” Ji Wusheng said. “There are still some missing links that are difficult to fill. And it’s not as convenient as using a photoelectric instrument.” The person in charge of the steel industry habitually wiped his forehead with a towel—in fact, there was not a drop of sweat on it. “I think it’s necessary to set up an attached laboratory in our steel plant. It’s still a bit troublesome to send people by train to deliver samples now—especially molten samples.”

“If this technology is successfully developed, spectral testing can be popularized to every factory that needs to determine elemental composition,” Ge Xinxin, seeing that her achievements had not caused a great response, couldn’t help but feel that her “pearl had been cast before swine.” “Besides, in the future, steel and non-ferrous metal enterprises will inevitably blossom everywhere, and the Planning Department can’t possibly equip every factory with a spectrometer.”

“That’s true,” Ji Wusheng said. “I have no objection, as long as it works. Right now, the industrial sector wants us to produce various alloys. Having this foundation will be much better.”

“I have no objection either,” Ji Tui Si said. “It’s just that with you doing this, Ge Xinxin, the burden on our chemical sector has become much heavier.”

“Steel is the skeleton of modern industry, and the chemical industry is its blood and flesh,” Ge Xinxin smiled. “Naturally, it’s the most important.”

This compliment was just right. Seeing the smiles on the faces of the few people, Ge Xinxin immediately struck while the iron was hot and returned to the main topic.

“The next step in the improvement plan is to replace the Bunsen burner with an oxyhydrogen welder. The temperature of the Bunsen burner is too low, and the coal gas contains many impurities, which can easily interfere with the spectrum. Of course, the most ideal method is the electric arc method. After all, the oxyhydrogen flame itself has certain spectral characteristics as an excitation source, and the temperature is not high enough.”

“To assemble the equipment for the electric arc method, I think we’ll be lucky to get it done by the third or fourth five-year plan,” Zhan Wuya said.

“Where there’s hope, there’s motivation,” Ge Xinxin said. “I have another idea, please consider it.”

She proposed the establishment of a dedicated chemical reagent workshop to provide chemical reagents, chemicals, and various consumables for the laboratories. Currently, for the chemical analysis done in several laboratories, many chemicals and reagents had already started to use products manufactured by the chemical plants of this world, but these products generally had problems of insufficient concentration and excessive impurities. Therefore, each laboratory had to re-purify the chemical reagents themselves before use, which involved a lot of manpower and material resources.

“…Now we have to do a lot of the basic chemical preparation work ourselves, even distilling our own water. It takes too much time and energy. And in the future, when there are more laboratories, some new laboratories may not have the ability to purify chemicals. And this time, the developer and fixer should also have a certain amount of reserve. So I suggest we centralize the equipment, scale up a bit, and have an Elder in charge of specifically preparing these products.”

“That’s a good idea,” Ji Tui Si had a similar idea before, but he was in charge of too many things and didn’t have time to look into it. “But there’s no suitable Elder for a while…”

“If you don’t mind me volunteering, I’m willing to take charge of this work,” Ge Xinxin said without hesitation.

“Oh?” Ji Tui Si was a little surprised. This was not a good job; it was both tiring and quite dangerous. “Alright, since you’re willing to do it, I don’t think there’s any problem—but this matter still needs the approval of the Planning Department.”

After the meeting, Ji Wusheng took the commuter train back to his office at the Ma Niao Steel Complex. It was located in the steel complex’s office area, standing alone in the middle of a circular red brick square. In front of the small building stood a model of a blast furnace taphole, cast from pig iron.

As usual, the employees of the steel complex were rushing about in the square, wearing the uniform black work clothes of the steel plant—a special color of work clothes exclusive to the steel complex. Their arms were marked with color-coded strips to identify their departments, and their chests were sewn with name and number tags.

Ji Wusheng strode into the office and asked the secretary on duty in the “Ji Office” about the current production situation.

“According to the report from the production scheduling room an hour ago, everything is normal at present,” the secretary reported.

“Good,” Ji Wusheng walked into his office. His office was on the first floor. Unlike the offices of other Elders, the floor was not paved with wood, but was simple terrazzo. Although the secretary cleaned it often, the floor was always dirty and messy, and there were always black stains on the walls. The technicians and workers from the workshop were often called to his office to discuss problems and report on their work. He himself also often went to the workshop and the blast furnace, inevitably tracking in ash and dust all over the floor.

On the coat rack in his office hung the work clothes and safety helmet he used when he went to the workshop. In the pocket of the work clothes was a pair of protective glasses for steelworkers.

Ji Wusheng sat down in his rattan chair. He vaguely understood the intention of the Planning Department in asking him to attend this meeting today: now that everyone was working hard to pave the way for materials science, as the person in charge of the steel enterprise, he had to show some results.

Indeed, elemental composition analysis was very important for smelting special steels like silicon steel, but silicon steel in this world was produced in an era without spectrometers, relying only on chemical analysis. Spectroscopic analysis was certainly more accurate than simple chemical analysis, but it was far from enough. Smelting silicon steel was a very complex matter. Although at the last industrial department meeting, he had given a one-month deadline for the trial smelting of silicon steel—he could indeed smelt silicon steel, and there were no difficulties with the raw materials—Ji Wusheng was not sure what kind of silicon steel he could produce.

In the old world’s China, the first furnace of hot-rolled silicon steel was not produced until 1954, which shows the technical difficulty of this thing. In terms of its position on the technology tree, this was a technology point that was not lit until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It would be very difficult for the Lin’gao industry to light it up ahead of time.

Ji Wusheng and several Elders who had some research on steelmaking had specially studied this issue. It was impossible to smelt silicon steel with the electric arc method. As for Ge Xinxin’s proposal to first smelt silicon and then make steel, he felt it was not necessary. Many Elders in the industrial sector were not sure whether silicon could be smelted using copper as a reducing agent, and new processes and new products would inevitably bring the problem of adding more equipment.

The result of the research was still to first smelt ferrosilicon, then use it to make silicon steel, and then hot-roll it into silicon steel. The performance would certainly not be ideal, but it was at least better than directly using low-carbon steel.

For the smelting of ferrosilicon, someone mentioned that the crucible method could be used, but several people discussed it and felt that it would be difficult for the crucible to reach a sufficient temperature, and the amount produced by the crucible was too small. It was fine for smelting small amounts of special steel, but it was too small for ferrosilicon, which was in greater demand.