Chapter 11 An excellent eunuch who can make two acids and two bases
After Zhu Houzhao taught the Eight Tigers the correct business model, soap, a new chemical product, finally became popular in the capital.
Not only Wei Bin’s Wei Ji store, but also Qiu Ju, Luo Xiang, Liu Jin and other stores’ soaps were basically sold out in a short period of time.
The stores had to place additional orders, and Royal Industries' soap-making team became extremely busy.
Under Zhu Houzhao's initial arrangement, only ten eunuchs participated in soap making, but now Zhu Houzhao has added twenty eunuchs to participate in soap making.
As soap gradually became popular in the capital, more and more shops came to order directly from the Royal Industrial Company. In the end, there were even long lines of merchants just ordering soap in bulk.
"Your Majesty, at first I begged those shops to buy goods, but now I don't need to beg. They are all rushing to place orders, and even paid the deposit in advance. Now the deposit is more than 4,000 taels." Wei Bin said to Zhu Houzhao excitedly.
Luo Xiang also reported: "Your Majesty, there are more people buying soap now, and our purchase of raw materials has also increased a lot. Because we purchase more and more, those who sell alkali noodles and lime are willing to give We lowered the price and now we can make a lot more money selling a bar of soap.”
Qiu Ju also reported: "Not only that, the soap business has been opened, and the eunuchs who make soap at the Royal Industrial Experimental Base have also become a lot more active. They also have shares now, and they know that the more they do, the more they earn. I worked overtime and now I can make more than 10,000 pieces of soap every day.”
Zhu Houzhao just smiled faintly after hearing this: "This is just the beginning. Don't be too happy too early. It's just a few cents of profit from a piece of soap. In the future, when you can make tens of thousands of taels of profit a day, it won't be too late for you to be happy. Glass The production of soap cannot be slowed down. The trend of soap rush will expire. After all, people who bought soap will not buy soap again. We have to think of other ways to make more money.”
When Zhu Houzhao said this, Qiu Ju, Luo Xiang, Wei Bin and other Eight Tigers also quickly agreed, and no longer had any resistance to their emperor's intention to make glass. In their current opinion, the new glass his emperor wanted to make was definitely It can make money.
The reason why it is called new glass is that it is not that there was no glass in the Ming Dynasty, but the glass produced in the Ming Dynasty is not large and generally cannot be transparent and colorless. The glass Zhu Houzhao wants is transparent, colorless and It must be able to blow into various types of glass containers and low-cost large pieces of glass that can be used to build greenhouses.
Zhu Houzhao first asked Qiu Ju to find craftsmen who could build glass-making kilns. They built a glass-making kiln at the Royal Industrial Experimental Base, the original Royal Xiyuan Tu'er Mountain, and rebuilt the crucible.
Using a crucible to burn glass can directly use coal with a higher combustion value as fuel.
The crucible can isolate the sulfide in coal from contaminating the glass liquid.
In addition, Zhu Houzhao also asked people to apply graphite on the bottom of the crucible to achieve even heating when heating the crucible.
Graphite does not exist in the form of chemical compounds in nature, it is not difficult to mine, and it can be purchased on the market.
As for the raw materials for refining glass, they have also been improved. There are not only basic materials such as quartz, limestone, and feldspar, but also materials such as soda ash and color-removing oxidants.
Soon, Zhu Houzhao refined the colorless glass liquid with the help of skilled old craftsmen from the glass factory. Then naturally, he just put the glass liquid directly on the mold. Large pieces of glass are fine, and they spread out evenly before the glass liquid solidifies. Yes, but it is not easy to obtain standard glass instruments for experiments. The weights and measures of this era were different from the basic measurement units of later generations. Zhu Houzhao used his memory to convert the data relationship between the current popular weights and measures and the basic measurement units of later generations to determine a glass experimental instrument mold with standard measurement units.
For example, a 250 ml volumetric flask and a 500 ml beaker. Then he directed these craftsmen to blow them according to his requirements.
In the Ming Dynasty, it was naturally impossible to achieve mechanical blowing. It could only be blown manually, that is, placing the glass liquid in the mold and blowing it while turning it with a metal blowpipe. Only then could a large number of glass experimental containers with quantitative significance be produced. .
With glass experimental instruments, it was much easier for Zhu Houzhao to prepare solutions and perform quantitative chemical reactions. For this reason, he specially asked Qiu Ju to build another laboratory at the Royal Industrial Experimental Base, and directly named it the chemistry laboratory.
Zhu Houzhao will further develop new chemical products in this chemistry laboratory. The by-product of soap is glycerol, and glycerin can not only be used to improve skin, but is also a very important chemical raw material. Now Zhu Houzhao will react glycerin with nitric acid to make Out of nitroglycerin.
Naturally, it is not difficult to make nitric acid. Today's Ming Dynasty already has gunpowder. If there is gunpowder, there will naturally be saltpeter. If there is saltpeter, making nitric acid will not be a problem.
Qiu Ju now also has a great interest in chemical engineering. By following Zhu Houzhao, he not only became familiar with the soap making process but also learned a lot of chemical engineering knowledge. Zhu Houzhao even took the initiative to teach him some. Now Zhu Houzhao puts him in charge of green vitriol. Preparation and purification, that is, producing concentrated sulfuric acid.
Because to make nitroglycerin, you need to make nitric acid, and the simplest way to make nitric acid is to react with concentrated sulfuric acid and saltpeter to generate nitric acid. However, nitric acid and sulfuric acid are both strong acids and very dangerous. Naturally, Zhu Houzhao will not personally take risks. Since Qiu Ju was interested, so he naturally asked Qiu Ju to conduct experiments for him.
Qiu Ju carefully boiled the green vitriol into concentrated sulfuric acid under the command of Zhu Houzhao through distillation, and then quantitatively reacted part of the concentrated sulfuric acid with a sodium hydroxide solution of a certain concentration, so that the concentration of the obtained concentrated sulfuric acid could be determined.
Finally, two hundred and fifty milliliters of concentrated sulfuric acid solution of determined concentration were prepared.
Zhu Houzhao was very pleased with this and couldn't help boasting to Qiu Ju: "Very good. Now I am the only one in the world who can determine the volume and prepare the solution. Besides, you can already make the three acids and two alkali." One acid and two alkalis. Based on this, I will definitely give you a treatment above the second grade in the future, because you are now worthy of the title of the great chemist of the Ming Dynasty. ”
Qiu Ju was very happy after hearing this. Although he didn't know what a great chemist was, he knew that the first- and second-grade treatment was a top-notch treatment. There were not many people in the Ming Dynasty. It was his dream to become a top-level person. He couldn't help but feel Follow Zhu Houzhao's arrangements more actively and continue to prepare nitric acid.
Under Zhu Houzhao's command, Qiu Ju first put concentrated sulfuric acid into a gooseneck flask with gravel, then placed it on a wire mesh to heat, then poured it into a glass reactor. When the concentrated sulfuric acid was hot, he added saltpeter, and then After stirring slowly until the saltpeter was completely melted and precipitated, Zhu Houzhao asked Qiu Ju to stop adding the saltpeter, and then prepared nitric acid.
Not long after, Zhu Houzhao took the diluted nitric acid from Qiu Ju's hand, and couldn't help praising Qiu Ju again: "What a good slave! Now you have three acids and two alkali. You have learned to make two acids and two alkali, but you must keep up your efforts." , according to the plan I gave you , react this nitric acid with glycerin, and if you can make nitroglycerin, I will reward you with 10,000 taels of silver on the Zhengdan Festival and award you the honorary title of the Royal Highest Science Award!"
With the popularization of Zhu Houzhao, Qiu Ju knew about the compounds of nitric acid and glycerin. He also heard from Zhu Houzhao that nitroglycerin made from nitric acid and glycerin is a miracle drug that can treat angina pectoris. However, Zhu Houzhao did not tell him that nitroglycerin is also an explosive, so He is now on nitroglycerin He still had beautiful illusions, especially now that Zhu Houzhao said that if he could make nitroglycerin, he would be given 10,000 taels of silver and some awards. He excitedly geared up and said, "Don't worry, Your Majesty, I will definitely make nitroglycerin for you." Come out!”
(End of chapter)