On New Year's Day, January 1, 1880, people across South America decorated themselves with lanterns and streamers to celebrate the arrival of the Gregorian New Year.
At the Susong Textile Factory in Chang'an City (Córdoba City), ordinary workers in the factory went home for the holidays and celebrated New Year's Day. Inside the factory, there were sixty or seventy key employees in the factory, more than a hundred researchers from the Royal Academy of Sciences, and technocrats.
Staying in the sweltering workshop, patiently waiting for the final results of the experiment.
"Mr. Lin, how sure are you that you can succeed?"
The director of Susong Textile Factory asked softly.
""Newly discovered dyes can easily turn blue when exposed to acidic substances, and if there is a slight error in the processing method, it will be difficult to increase the wet processing fastness to a level that meets the requirements.
Therefore, workshops that use new dyes to dye cloth must add the amount of strong acidic reagents such as sulfuric acid in strict accordance with the prescribed proportions."
A young Chinese youth watched the actions of several technicians operating machines next to the dyeing pool and said seriously, "Although the use of new dyes is restricted by certain conditions, based on the textile industry dyes from England, France, the United States and other Western powers,
Technical level, the new dye has better fabric dyeing performance than the indigo dye invented by German Bayer two years ago.
And after hundreds of verifications in the laboratory, I can tell you with certainty that the industrial application of the new dye is at least 90% certain to be successful."
"With your words, I feel relieved."
The director of Susong Textile Factory looked much more relaxed. He sighed, "It has only been seven or eight years ago, but the development of the textile industry is completely different from before. A few years ago, it was still a hand-made workshop style such as vat dyeing, vat dyeing, and sulfuric acid. Now
They have all been replaced with textile machines, dyeing machines, cloth drawing machines and other machine operations. It is really a change every year."
"His Majesty has often said before that today's science and technology is developing rapidly, and it will be very difficult to catch up after being slightly behind other countries."
A young man affiliated with the Royal Academy echoed, "Take the development of the dye industry in Western countries in recent years. In 1873, the French chemists Crousian and Bretonnier combined lignite and steel powder.
In the roasting experiment of paper, leather, etc. with sodium sulfide and sulfur, brown sulfur dye was obtained.
Not long ago, British people Thomas and R. Holliday soaked cotton cloth with ethenyl naphthol sodium salt solution in a low temperature environment, and then used ethenyl naphthylamine diazonium salt to develop color, and successfully turned the cotton fiber red, thus obtaining
An ice dye...
Western countries did not start much earlier than us in chemical textile dyes, but looking at the rapid development of science and technology in Germany, England, the United States and other countries, we cannot just imitate and import, and the right way is to independently develop new technologies."
"In the past few years, the local educated population was relatively small, and the country lacked applied and research-oriented talents. It is an objective fact that the overall science and technology lags behind the West. However, after ten years of large-scale financial subsidies and investment, the number of students studying abroad has exceeded 3,000.
The first six batches of overseas students who have returned to China after completing their studies can engage in basic technology research, chemical engineering, electrical and other emerging industries, and there will not be anyone available."...
While several young chemical researchers were talking, the textile workers carefully took out the dyed cloth and placed it in a medium-high temperature environment to dry.
Two hours later, the first dyed gray cloth was initially dried. The workers took out a piece of red cloth more than ten meters long and spread it on the table. Everyone gathered around and discussed loudly.
"Director Wang, how is the quality of the cloth?"
"It's very good. The color is bright. The cloth will not fade or wrinkle after being soaked in water and washed. It is a fine dye."
The director of Susong Textile Factory touched the bleached and dyed cloth and admired it.
"Nature is a good dye. Using this dye to dip-dye gray fabrics not only has good dyeing effects and does not fade, but the dye cost is about 20% lower than mainstream Western dyes. If combined with the latest printing and dyeing machines, the dye cost can be further reduced.
Some."
"A piece of finished cloth now costs two Chinese yuan. If the cost of dye consumed by each piece of finished cloth is reduced by 20%, a lot of money can be saved in one year."
The factory director said with joy on his face, "The cost is low and the fabric color is good. After using new dyes, our export advantage of finished fabrics will be even higher."
Mr. Lin, this is a great thing, you should take advantage of today’s festive day to let His Majesty know about it as soon as possible."
"Don't worry, Factory Director Wang may not know yet that the research and development of new dyes is carried out under the leadership of His Majesty. The principles and various ingredients of the new dyes were proposed by His Majesty. We are just following His Majesty's prompts.
, just conducting detailed experiments.”
A man named Lin Shenhe, a researcher who successfully completed the research and development of new dyes, explained.
"But the trial production of the new dye is successful, so we should give this new dye a name, right?"
"At the end of the verification experiment the day before yesterday, His Majesty personally chose the name. It is called Congo Red Dye, which means to commemorate the country's first large overseas colony."...
Use as a dye agent in the textile industry is only one of the many uses of Congo red. It can also be used as an acid-base indicator agent, a biological analysis reagent, an adsorption indicator, and used to determine halides, thiocyanates, zinc, and a large number of
Used in paper production and other aspects.
At the same time when Mendeleev organized the periodic table of elements in 1869, the chemical industry in Han Dynasty also began to take off. The rubber industry was the earliest chemical branch industry to be put into practical application. Since then, Li Mingyuan recalled the applied chemistry expertise he learned during his university days.
, select some knowledge points and simply compile four basic subjects: "Basics of Organic Chemistry", "Basics of Inorganic Chemistry", "Basics of Analytical Chemistry", and "Introduction to Physical Chemistry", specifically for chemical engineering students who have returned from studying abroad to study and carry out
For research experiments.
In the second half of the 19th century, chemical engineering had not yet become an independent industrial category. In his previous life, Li Mingyuan, as a graduate majoring in applied chemical engineering, only learned broad and basic chemical engineering knowledge, but those were based on the premise of a hundred years of wisdom summarized by predecessors.
In the 1870s and 1880s, most of the underlying knowledge system had not yet been proposed.
A set of chemical reaction equations behind a common chemical process in later generations, a simple chemical phenomenon principle, taken alone, may be a major chemical discovery. However, limited to the current overall scientific and technological level, Li Mingyuan can only remember what
Some knowledge was written down and given to local students who had returned from studying abroad, and then confidentiality was paid attention to, and the dissemination of this knowledge was strictly limited to a small group of researchers in the chemical industry of the Royal Academy.
The discovery of Congo red reagent can be regarded as a small progress in dye chemical industry. In the planning of Han State's large chemical industry system, the chemical branch industries currently under development include dyes, rubber, explosives, soda ash, pharmaceutical chemicals, coal chemicals, and plastics.
, catalyst chemical industry, photosensitive materials, coating industry, man-made fiber, petrochemical industry, and fertilizer industry, a total of thirteen directions.
In the chemical dye industry, work such as using aminoanthraquinone as the main raw material for alkali melting to obtain reduced blue RSN substances, separation to obtain stronger 2-naphthol-3-formyl arylamine, and improving the color phenol AS color system are still ongoing.
In progress, the current research direction is mainly inorganic dyes, and the development of organic dyes will have to wait until after the twentieth century.
In the rubber industry, the locally mastered pneumatic bicycle tire technology has attracted the attention of scientific circles such as Germany and the United Kingdom. Western countries are also stepping up scientific research on using natural rubber as raw materials to develop a variety of practical products. At the same time, relying on the technical advantages accumulated in the early stage
, some local researchers in the Academy of Sciences began to follow the technical plan written by Li Mingyuan and tried to use aniline as a vulcanizing agent and carbon black as a reinforcing agent to continue experiments related to improving the plasticity of rubber.
Soda ash can be used in glass manufacturing, food processing industry, MSG production and other industries,
In 1861, when e. Solvay was engaged in concentrating dilute ammonia in a gas plant, he used brine to absorb ammonia and dioxide.
Sodium carbonate gas was obtained from the experiment of carbonization. In the same year, he obtained the process of producing sodium carbonate from salt ammonia and carbon dioxide.
Patents for industrial production methods.
This production method is called the Solvay method, also known as the ammonia-alkali method. In 1863, E. Solvay and his brother A. Solvay raised funds to form the Solvay Corporation and established a soda ash plant in Couye, Belgium.
, it was put into operation in January 1865, and its output reached 10 tons per day in 1872.
In 1873, the soda ash produced by Solvay Company won the Jongpu Prize for Quality Purity at the Vienna International Exposition. From then on until the 1950s, the Solvay method had been the mainstream method for making soda ash. Later, Hou's method
The alkali production method and the German Chaan method are both improvements and improvements based on the Sowell method.
It is relatively difficult to improve the Sowell process. The local research direction in this area is to use the fragmented technical points provided by Li Mingyuan to try to restore the main process flow of Hou's alkali production process.
The Han Dynasty started with the military, and the explosive chemical industry, which is directly related to military weapons and equipment, is also the focus of the large-scale chemical industry development plan. There are two main methods for producing smokeless gunpowder picric acid, namely sulfonitration of phenol and dinitrophenol.
Nitration, the latter being prepared by the hydrolysis of chlorodinitrophenyl. The first method involves a two-step process consisting of a step of sulfonation of phenol, followed by a step of nitration of the resulting sulfonated phenol.
However, such a process has many disadvantages: the sulfonation operation takes a long time and inevitably leads to a low level of productivity. The nitration operation is then carried out in a dilute medium, which in turn leads to a reduction in productivity. Another method of preparing picric acid also involves a number of steps -
The nitration of chlorobenzene yields chlorodinitrobenzene, the resulting product is subsequently hydrolyzed, and then dinitrophenol is nitrated from a mixture of nitric acid and fuming sulfuric acid. This method is unsatisfactory due to its long time, complexity and serious pollution.
The two general methods of making picric acid were both recorded in Li Mingyuan's mind. However, because it was a matter of confidentiality, the people who were working on the method of making picric acid were all locally trained Chinese students. They encountered many setbacks during the experiment until 1880.
The experimental preparation technical route was only completed the day before New Year's Day. As for mastering the technical process and carrying out large-scale production, it will probably take about half a year to a year.
Rubber chemical industry, dye chemical industry, soda ash chemical industry, and explosive chemical industry are the most important in the large chemical industry system. More than 70% of the local chemical engineering talents trained locally in the past ten years and the chemical engineering talents studying abroad are concentrated in the above four major chemical industry branches.
Man-made fibers used as textile raw materials, plastic chemicals in the polymer processing stage, are currently mainly used to produce photosensitive materials for camera films, and other chemical branch industries such as coal chemical industry and petrochemical industry whose technical conditions are not yet mature. Although some products have
Export advantages, but considering the difficulty of subsequent technological development, it is only in the technology reserve stage and will not be a key development direction in the next ten years.