Chapter 8 Royal Industrial Experimental Base
Zhu Houzhao did not go to Mingyue Tower at this time, but returned to his Leopard Room.
To be precise, he is now in his "Royal Industrial Experimental Base".
The so-called "Royal Industrial Experimental Base" is still in its infancy stage at this time, with only one wooden door and three brick houses.
The wooden door with double eaves is written with the eight characters "Royal Industrial Experimental Base". The characters were handwritten by Zhu Houzhao himself. Although he does not have the style of a famous scholar, it is still neat, and no one dares to say that his writing is not good.
This wooden door with double eaves is now the main entrance of the "Royal Industrial Experimental Base".
The three brick houses can be regarded as the current laboratories and manufacturing workshops of the "Royal Industrial Experimental Base". They are very simple, but there is nothing that can be done. Zhu Houzhao has limited funds, and even the Leopard House is not considered luxurious, let alone this "Royal Industrial Experimental Base" .
Even if it weren't for fire protection, Zhu Houzhao would have wanted someone to build a wooden shed first.
Among the three brick buildings, one is used as a warehouse, and the other two are laboratories and manufacturing workshops. They are all rooms with large windows. The laboratory does not have small windows for ventilation.
In the manufacturing workshop, on the first day Zhu Houzhao moved in, he had already ordered the eunuchs to start working inside. They were busy collecting distilled water.
Five large stoves hold iron pots that are constantly boiling water in the workshop. The hot steam condenses into distilled water when it encounters the grooves of the wooden boards, and is collected by the eunuch into a washed and dried water tank, which is then sealed.
No matter how simple the soap making process is, it is still a chemical product. Chemical products require distilled water to prepare solutions. Ordinary water contains impurities. To ensure the purity of chemical products, we can only ensure from the beginning that the solvent, that is, water, must be impurity-free. of distilled water.
The only laboratory in the "Royal Industrial Experimental Base" now becomes the soap experimental workshop.
Zhu Houzhao is here now, personally instructing several eunuchs to add distilled water to a large wooden barrel, and then after filling the water, he asked these eunuchs to add quicklime to the large wooden barrel.
Because when quicklime reacts with water to form calcium hydroxide or slaked lime, it will generate a lot of heat, and the addition of soda ash will be even more intense later. In order to ensure the safety of these little eunuchs, he also specially made them wear specially made clothes. white coat.
Even Zhu Houzhao himself put on a white coat, and the Eight Tigers following him, such as Luo Xiang, Qiu Ju, and Wei Bin, also obeyed his orders and followed him in white coats.
Luo Xiang and other "Eight Tigers" eunuchs don't know what the "Royal Industrial Experimental Base" means, and they don't even understand why His Majesty has formulated the "Experimental Code" that strictly requires those who enter the "Royal Industrial Experimental Base" to wear white coats regardless of their official position. .
They only thought that His Majesty was refining elixirs to deceive the ministers.
Zhu Houzhao naturally knew that the eunuchs around him did not understand his true purpose. As an emperor, he did not need to explain to his slaves.
This is his own territory, so naturally he can do whatever he wants.
These little eunuchs didn't understand what their majesty was going to do. They just obeyed Zhu Houzhao's instructions and added lime to the barrel. Soon the water in the barrel started to gurgling.
These little eunuchs were all dumbfounded. Basically, they who grew up in the palace did not expect that adding lime to the water would cause the water to roll violently.
Zhu Houzhao himself was not idle. When the eunuchs added distilled water since childhood, he was making experimental records to determine the amount of various raw materials to be added.
Luo Xiang, Qiu Ju and other eunuchs also secretly expressed their wonder, wondering when His Majesty would play with these magical things. At this time, Zhu Houzhao had already ordered these eunuchs to immediately pour alkaline noodles, or soda ash, into the big wooden barrel. The temperature of the water rose sharply and started to boil. The whole air became so hot that Zhu Houzhao himself was so hot. He was sweating, and the large amount of water vapor that came out at this time was rapidly cooled into water mist because of the cold air, making the entire brick house feel like a fairyland.
After the water temperature cools down, the entire barrel becomes an aqueous solution of calcium carbonate precipitate and sodium hydroxide. This is the first step of the reaction.
Immediately afterwards, Zhu Houzhao ordered these eunuchs to ladle the sodium hydroxide solution into the prepared iron pot, pour the sodium hydroxide solution into the iron pot, and at the same time ordered people to pour in distilled high-concentration alcohol. solution.
The reason why alcohol is added is because lard is difficult to dissolve in water. Adding alcohol can promote the full dissolution and contact of lard and soda ash in the aqueous solution to promote the reaction.
The functional group of ethanol is hydroxide and does not react with sodium hydroxide, so there is no problem when adding alcohol.
But contrary to expectations, an accident still occurred.
A young eunuch poured alcohol carelessly, causing the sodium hydroxide solution to splash onto his hand. The highly corrosive sodium hydroxide solution began to corrode the young eunuch's skin. Zhu Houzhao hurriedly asked him to put his hand into the pre-prepared liquid. The prepared vinegar jar prevented much damage.
At this time, Zhu Houzhao ordered the eunuchs to add lard to the iron pot and asked them to stir continuously.
The eunuchs did not dare to be careless this time. Having seen the power of sodium hydroxide, they carefully poured in the lard and stirred it. Soon, the lard gradually melted and saponified with the sodium hydroxide to form a viscous liquid. .
But this did not mean the end. Zhu Houzhao personally came over and took a small porcelain bottle, added the pre-prepared distilled water to it and let it stand. After finding that there was still grease coming out, he ordered the eunuch to continue adding sodium hydroxide to the iron pot. solution while heating the pan as usual.
After repeating this process several times, Zhu Houzhao finally asked his eunuchs to complete the saponification of the lard and obtain a large amount of viscous liquid containing soap. This was the second step of the reaction.
Next, there is the salting out process. Zhu Houzhao ordered his eunuchs to add the viscous liquid to the pre-saturated salt solution. After leaving it standing, the soap will float due to salting out, and then undergo further alkalization treatment to turn into pure soap liquid.
Finally, it is cooling and solidification.
Looking at the solid yellow soap in the iron pot, Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but smile with satisfaction.
Even if the first modern industrial product of the Ming Dynasty Royal Industrial Experimental Base is born, Zhu Houzhao has reason to believe that it will change this era and bring him a lot of economic benefits.
But this does not mean that mass production can now be carried out. Zhu Houzhao still has to make quantitative records based on the experimental process, and then conduct experiments again to optimize the most efficient and lowest-cost process.
Zhu Houzhao finally determined the soap making process of his Royal Industrial Experimental Base, starting from the required volume of wooden barrels and the corresponding amount of distilled water and the corresponding amounts of sodium hydroxide and calcium hydroxide, as well as the subsequent addition of soda ash and lard. The amount, and even how many times the existing liquor was distilled at high heat and temperature were recorded.
But the fly in the ointment was that there were no standard containers in this era. Zhu Houzhao was unable to measure the concentration of the sodium hydroxide solution after the first step of the reaction and the concentration of the alcohol solution after the final distillation, making it impossible for him to improve the production quality and purity of existing soaps.
In any case, Zhu Houzhao could at least carry out mass soap production in the Ming Dynasty.
(End of chapter)