The class led by Teresa also graduated successfully. After that, she will no longer serve as a teacher, but will devote herself to the work of the Ministry of Education.

The next morning, in the northern part of Bianzhu Town.

The newly built chemistry laboratory occupies a much larger area than the previous temporary laboratory, the internal space is much spacious, and all kinds of experimental equipment are basically available.

Entering the laboratory building, Owen met Nukelen and others. They were now official laboratory personnel. They were wearing lab coats and looked like scientific researchers.

White coats can only be worn inside the laboratory and must be taken off before leaving the laboratory. They have developed this habit.

"Lord Lord."

Seeing Irving, Nukelian and others were ready to bow and say hello.

"There is no need to be so polite." Owen quickly stopped him, "The chemical experiment we are going to do today is very important, and I will also do this experiment with you."

"Lord, may I ask what substance you want to prepare today?" Niuklian asked.

"Mercury fulminate, a detonating explosive, is highly sensitive to flames, needle punctures and impacts. It is a very dangerous thing. During the preparation process, you must be gentle. Do you understand?"

"clear."

Hearing this, everyone nodded cautiously.

On their first day as regular employees, they will have to conduct such a dangerous chemical experiment, and they must deal with it seriously.

Next, Irving also put on a white coat, and then entered the chemistry laboratory with Newk Lian and the others.

Unrelated personnel such as Mapel and Angelica were not allowed to come in, so they had to stand outside and guard the door.

"First prepare the required experimental reagents, including concentrated nitric acid, ethanol, mercury..." Owen ordered, "and the experimental equipment requires a thermometer, alcohol lamp..."

Niuklian and his team split up to get the required experimental reagents and equipment, placing them all neatly on the experimental table.

Purifying ethanol was once one of the topics, and Niukren and others purified and stored a lot of it in the laboratory.

The thermometer was also made by Rob. After being calibrated by Owen's data visualization function, the temperature displayed is very accurate.

Before the experiment started, Irving wrote down the reaction equation and rough preparation process on a blackboard, and then explained the principles of this chemical experiment to Niuklian and others.

"Look here, mercury fulminate is produced by mixing mercury and ethanol into excess nitric acid, or by directly reacting mercury nitrate with ethanol..."

Because Owen attaches great importance to mercury fulminate, he has done enough homework early on, and the entire explanation process is very detailed.

Afterwards, he asked and answered several questions to confirm that everyone understood the preparation process of mercury fulminate, and the experiment began immediately.

…

Finally, a precipitate of gray crystals was produced in the test tube.

"Lord, is this mercury fulminate?"

Staring at the contents of the test tube, Nukelian lowered his voice and turned to ask Irving.

Owen looked closely and replied: "That's right. The crude product of mercury fulminate is gray to dark brown crystals or powder, while the refined product is white and shiny needle-shaped crystals. We will know after some more tests.

"

Under Owen's instructions, Newkle carefully removed some of the precipitate from the test tube and then conducted a series of tests.

The characteristics are indeed the same as mentioned in the previous explanation, very sensitive and violent. It can be determined that the gray precipitate in the test tube is mercury fulminate.

"Lord Lord!"

After the test, Niuklian could not help but clenched his fists and said excitedly: "Success! We successfully removed the mercury fulminate!"

The previous subject experiment was also the same with Newk Lian.

Every time a new substance is produced, he will be very excited and enjoy it.

"Very good." Owen couldn't help but smile, "From today on, you will prepare a large amount of mercury fulminate in the laboratory, and the storage method must be as I told you, otherwise an explosion accident will easily occur."

"Understood, Lord Lord." Everyone responded.

Before a military factory for the preparation of mercury fulminate is established, it is temporarily necessary to rely on laboratories to prepare sufficient mercury fulminate.

After the preparation was successful, Owen did not leave the laboratory immediately, but stayed to observe Newk Lian and the others conduct the experiment again.

After confirming that Newk Lian and the others had mastered the experiment of preparing mercury fulminate, Irving left the laboratory with confidence and prepared to deal with other matters.

Now that the primer for the new bullet is available, the smokeless propellant, a mixture of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin, also needs to be prepared in large quantities.

The backward black powder must be gradually replaced by it.

Nowadays, with the trona supplied by the two major chambers of commerce, Xiadao and Crescent, a large amount of caustic soda can be produced by the causticization method, and the scale of nitrocellulose manufacturing can be expanded on the original basis.

Glycerin is the ultimate by-product of the soap factory and is continuously produced during the soap manufacturing process.

The large amount of concentrated nitric acid required to prepare nitroglycerin is not a problem. The slime farm has begun to take shape under the management of Rona, and the concentrated nitric acid produced every day is enough to supply Bianzhu Town.

Not long ago, Rona went to the city hall to apply for recruiting new staff and expanding the size of the breeding farm. It must be that the acid slime has split again.

In other words, the production volume of concentrated nitric acid will further increase in the future, so there is no need to worry at all.

In addition, there are high-power explosives, whether they are TNT or digested starch, which require the use of concentrated nitric acid.

If TNT cannot be produced for the time being, then digestible starch will be produced. When the wheat harvest is completed this autumn, the parts used for food and wine making will be removed, and the rest will be used to prepare refined starch.

Of course, new shells and explosives are available, and new weapons must keep up.

In fact, Owen has asked Gita to trial-produce a new musket-a bolt-action rifle. It is currently in the hands of Viscount Jarvis, waiting for new bullets.

The bolt-action rifle uses a striker-type bullet primer, which can greatly reduce the probability of bullet failure. It comes with a magazine that can load five bullets at a time, increasing the shooting speed.

New bullets will be clamped in advance using a magazine, and can be directly pressed into the magazine when loading, which can significantly improve the loading efficiency.

After the new bullet is manufactured and Viscount Jarvis completes the test firing, Owen will order the military factory to start mass production of bolt-action rifles.

The choice to manufacture bolt-action rifles, rather than automatic or semi-automatic rifles, is limited by current bullet production volumes and technological processes.

According to Winster, the bullet consumption of automatic or semi-automatic rifles is extremely alarming. Before the scale of bullet production in Border Guard Town has increased, it is better to equip the People's Army with bolt-action rifles.

Otherwise, wouldn't it be embarrassing if you ran out of bullets in the middle of the battle?

As for the next generation of artillery, it is still under construction. It should not be a problem to build four before winter comes.

Weapons and equipment have been upgraded in all aspects. There is no doubt that the People's Army will have a much easier time dealing with undead monsters this winter.

Although I did not choose an automatic or semi-automatic rifle, if I have a few firearms that can fire bullets quickly and continuously, I can form a strong fire suppression on the battlefield and kill a large number of living targets at critical moments.

Owen suddenly remembered a type of firearm that Winster had mentioned - machine guns, the most famous of which seemed to be the Gatling machine gun.

This is in line with the current needs of Border Guard Town and allows Gita to build a few machine guns.

Thinking of this, Owen quickly called Alpha in his mind.

【alpha.】

[Do you need help from Alpha? 】

[Help me find the machine gun design drawings in the folder, and introduce the advantages and disadvantages of each machine gun by the way.]

【learn.】
Chapter completed!