Chapter 259 Dry
Shanmei, Hongcao Town.
Hailufeng Hongcao Town Freeze-dried Food Factory.
Lin Lewen, the head of the factory, was very satisfied with the wastewater for cleaning vegetables and fruits, and was quickly reused through the circulating water purification system.
"Lao He, how much water is used to clean the workshop now?"
The elder of the workshop, He whispered: "The factory director, the consumption is about 98% lower than before."
"New technology is powerful, especially for factories like ours that need to clean vegetables and fruits a lot every day, this can reduce a lot of costs." Lin Lewen seemed to have seen the factory's report at the end of the month and was a little more beautiful. "It can indeed reduce a lot of costs." Old Heshen felt the same.
Although their factory relies on the big tree of Hailufeng Company to get a water discount of 2.3 yuan per cubic meter from the local area, compared with the electricity bill of only 0.015 yuan per cubic meter after processing it itself, plus 0.003 yuan per cubic meter of depreciation fee, the overall cost has dropped significantly.
Taking the use of 100 cubic meters of fresh water as an example.
Before the new technology was adopted, the overall cost was RMB 230.
After adopting the new technology, the overall cost has dropped to RMB 6.364.
The cost is only about 2.7% of the previous one.
In the past year, you can save money on several sets of sewage treatment equipment.
Lin Lewen turned his head and saw Huang Meiqin, a factory technical director, who was in a daze: "Director Huang? What do you think?"
"Uh?" Huang Meiqin then realized: "Is there a backup of this water purification equipment?"
"Yes, after all, our factory should be in case the equipment breaks down or needs repairs. Therefore, there is a set of backup equipment, and the equipment is still in the warehouse. The backup water treatment workshop will be renovated next month, and it will be installed. What are you asking about this?"
Huang Meiqin had an idea in her mind to verify: "Lin Factory, I want to study this set of equipment, and I hope you can approve it."
"This... what are you going to study on, Director Huang?" Lin Lewen did not agree immediately, after all, a set of equipment costs 50,000 yuan.
There are currently three models of industrial-grade water purifiers produced by Minqin Group, namely 1M087, 3M261, and 10M870.
1M in 1M087 means that the evaporation contact surface is 1 square meter, and the other two models and so on.
The 087 in the 1M087 industrial water purifier means that 87 cubic meters of pure water can be extracted every hour, and other models are also named as such.
The two equipments of Hongcao Town Freeze-dried Food Factory are both 1M087 industrial water purifiers. The freeze-drying production line of their factory is 24 hours a day, but the cleaning workshop, selection workshop, and cutting workshop only runs for 12 hours a day. Therefore, the sewage treatment does not require all treatment at once, and part of the sewage can be distributed to non-production time periods.
And their factory has not much production capacity.
The main reason is that the production cost of freeze-dried food is relatively high. Even if their product quality, taste and cost-effectiveness are first-class on the market, but the price is still relatively high, so the market size has never been large.
"Lin Factory, I plan to study whether I can use a water purifier to dry vegetables and fruits."
"Water purifier to dry vegetables and fruits?" Lin Lewen was confused at first, and then felt that it was a bit feasible. Although he was a bit of a waste of time, he was not really thinking about it. He just had never found a suitable way, so he chose to hold his hands.
He thought for a while and felt that the factory could afford the loss for tens of thousands of yuan, so he agreed: "I approved it. You should write a research and development project for funds, materials and equipment for me on the grounds that the factory is going to carry out the research and development of new drying processes."
"No problem." Huang Meiqin was ready to pick her hands.
The next day, after writing the relevant scientific research project application form.
In the afternoon of that day, Huang Meiqin took several technicians, electricians, and repairmen to pull the equipment to the freeze-dried food laboratory.
The maintenance worker disassembled the outer shell and the thick filter at the bottom of the water purifier, and saw dense nano fine needles on the contact surface.
A technician lifted his glasses and said, "Director Huang, I have checked some internal information. These nanoneedles are special silicon carbide tubes. They are very hard and strong, and can withstand ultra-high temperatures of 2,800 degrees Celsius. They are generally difficult to destroy."
"I know, start the test now!" Huang Meiqin ordered.
"I understand!"
Several people put a pretreated red micro banana in a vacuum box and then installed the inner core of the water purifier.
However, the result was much beyond their expectations. The moisture in the vacuum box increased rapidly and a lot of water would be pumped soon.
Soon they realized that a female technician was noting this situation: "This is not possible! The negative pressure of the vacuum box will cause the inner core of the water purifier to absorb moisture from the air in the reverse direction."
Huang Meiqin thought for a moment: "Then reverse."
After putting the banana on the other side and using the negative pressure of the vacuum box, putting the air moisture in the ordinary box on the side of the banana, the air moisture is quickly sucked by the inner core of the water purifier, and the moisture on the surface of the banana is also evaporating at a faster rate.
But it evaporated for 37 hours before drying was completed. "This efficiency is slower than our freeze-drying equipment." A blood-shot technician complained.
The female technician in charge of the notes said another point: "The electricity bill is much less than freeze-drying."
Huang Meiqin frowned: "This efficiency is too slow. Although the electricity bill is less, the time cost also needs to be considered."
The blood-filled technician suggested: "Director, do you want to consider heating? The inner core of the water purifier can quickly dry the air. If the temperature is increased, the evaporation efficiency can be increased."
"Doesn't heating require electricity? Moreover, heating will destroy the nutrients of vegetables and fruits, so it's better to use freeze-drying." Another technician reminded.
Suddenly Huang Meiqin saw a banana in the glassware that was far away from the nanoneedles. He quickly ordered: "Put the nanoneedles in the core of the water purifier close to the banana to see if it can improve the drying efficiency."
The experiment started again soon.
This time their experiment was very fast.
In particular, 10 of the bananas inserted on the nanoneedles were completely dried in less than ten minutes.
"Damn! So fast?" The technician with bloodshot eyes took off a banana that was sucked lightly. He put it on an electronic scale and measured it: "The weight is much lighter than freeze-dried and hot-drying. I didn't expect that the drying effect would be so good after contact."
Crack... Another technician broke off a piece, then stuffed it directly into the mouth and chewed it: "It's very dry, dry than ordinary freeze-dried bananas, but the banana flavor is almost completely preserved, and the sweetness is much higher."
Huang Meiqin also ate a few pieces: "It's indeed a little dry. If the dryness is controlled, it should be the same as the dryness of the freeze-dried bananas."
"But we should succeed, right?" The female technician recorded the data of this experiment.
Huang Meiqin shook her head: "I can't be completely sure of a banana alone, so try other products."
"Okay."
Everyone started experimenting happily.
They experimented with drying all the freeze-dried products currently produced by the factory.
The sunset outside the window, Huang Meiqin and others were still busy, but the smiles on their faces became increasingly difficult to suppress.
The dozens of vegetables and fruits tested currently have shown very good drying effects, with an average drying time of 3 to 6 minutes, and they are all carried out at room temperature and pressure. The overall cost is about 97% lower than the previous lyophilization process.
Even the factory director Lin Lewen, who has been paying attention to this matter, brought several management teams of the factory to taste these new types of dry vegetables and fruits.
"This is delicious, the tomato taste is almost 100%, and the moisture is also retained just right."
"I think this okra is good."
"Manager, I think the equipment can be improved as soon as possible. If a new drying process is adopted, our drying cost will be reduced by 97%. We can quickly open the market through low-priced sales, thereby expanding the production scale."
Lin Lewen also made up his mind at this time: "I think so too. Director Huang, you organize the technical information as soon as possible, and then package it to the patent management department to let them apply for a patent as soon as possible."
"No problem." Huang Meiqin nodded. "In addition, Deputy Director Li, please contact Minqin Group and let them produce room temperature fast dryers according to our requirements."
"Yes, leave it to me."
The management of the factory worked overtime overnight.
On the one hand, they see the broad prospects of this technology.
On the other hand, they also know that this technology is very simple, but other companies or scientific research teams have not noticed that after the various water purifiers of Minqin Group are launched on a large scale, someone will definitely find this purpose.
So what they have to do now is to seize the initiative, take down the patent first, and at the same time expand the production scale of the factory.
You should know that the price of a 1M087 industrial water purifier is 50,000 yuan, but its production cost is less than 3,000 yuan and its gross profit is 47,000 yuan.
This is the power of the high-tech industry.
After using this patent from Hongcao Town Freeze-dried Food Factory, Minqin Group, will definitely give the patent management department a gross profit of about 15% as the technical authorization fee, 5% of which belongs to Hongcao Town Freeze-dried Food Factory. As the core team of patent research and development, Huang Meiqin's team will receive 2%, and the remaining 3% will belong to all employees of the factory.
The incentive ratio of the company will be higher in the technology research and development spontaneously completed by this factory. If it is a technology developed by professional R&D institutions such as a scientific research and development department, the incentive ratio will be lower.
The main reason is that there are certain differences between the two R&D models.
Because if it is an R&D project within the factory, if there is a loss, it is the factory management that is responsible.
Many of their projects in the scientific research department were approved by Jiang Miao, so if they failed, it was also Jiang Miao who assumed the main responsibility, and the pressure on the R&D team was not that great.
This is the risk and return.
If the factory management does not need to be responsible, then every factory will continue to carry out scientific research projects, and the result may be a mess.
So this limitation is present.
Lin Lewen approved the room temperature drying project, so he must be responsible. If there is any loss, he, the factory director, is the first responsible person, and Huang Meiqin is the second responsible person.
With this kind of restriction, the factory manager dares not approve scientific research projects casually, and can only calculate the annual profit of the factory and take out a small part of the funds as scientific research funds.
No mistakes, one song, one content, one in 6, one book, one bar, one reading!
And these scientific research funds are not available casually. The company's finance department, scientific research department, and supervision department will send people to review to avoid factory management from making a clever name to enrich themselves.
…
Huang Meiqin's team did not lie flat, but continued to carry out various research. Since the project has achieved results, they naturally would not be held back and began to increase their investment.
The lyophilized fruit powder they have been studying before.
With the new drying technology, they achieve maximum retaining of fruit flavor and can be produced at low cost.
For example, lemon honey powder, using ultra-dried lemon slices and dried honey crystals, and then crushing them with a crusher, can produce pure natural lemon honey powder.
There are also full-nutrition vegetable and fruit juice powders, which can process various vegetables and fruits through room temperature drying technology, and then mix them into specific vegetable and fruit juice powders. Just brew them with cold white cabbage and you can get a cup of products that are almost exactly the same as freshly squeezed juice and freshly squeezed vegetable juice.
After more than a week.
The canning factory in Magong Town also came to find them to cooperate.
"Dry pre-made dishes?"
Huang Meiqin looked at the pre-made dishes sample brought by Du Xiang, the manager of the canning factory.
Du Xiang pointed to more than a dozen boxes of pre-made vegetable buns: "Yes, we want to try dry pre-made vegetable buns to see if they can compress the overall weight and reduce costs during transportation, as long as the flavor of the dish will not change significantly."
"Yes, but your factory will have to pay us funds, otherwise I will not do this." Huang Meiqin looked like a brother clearing the score. "I know, our factory can give you 1 million yuan in funding."
"Then there is no problem."
The two talked about some details of their cooperative research and development, and then left six technicians from the canning factory to help with the freeze-dried food factory.
In the laboratory.
After pumping more than a dozen bags of pre-made dishes, they looked at the dry and loose pre-made dishes on the plate and re-watered them with hot water.
The result is mixed with good or bad.
A large part of the vegetables in the vegetable buns have become a paste state. Only potatoes with high starch content, peas, beans, eggplant and celery with high fiber content can barely maintain their shape.
Leafy vegetables, tomatoes, carrots, onions, and white radish were basically wiped out.
The taste did not change significantly.
There are generally not much changes in meat, especially the lean meat part that is dry and divided into dry meat, and then rehydrates after pumping water. It is still the same shape and the flavor is preserved intact.
The fat part becomes very soft and rotten, and you basically don’t need to chew it. It melts in your mouth, making you feel like you have a bite of oil.
Obviously, during the pumping process, the overall structure of the fat meat is destroyed. After the fat meat is cooked, the structure will degenerate, and then rehydrate through pumping and rehydration, it will definitely become very loose.
In the evening, Huang Meiqin and others who had not returned home were still doing research. "Director, I've had a midnight snack." A technician took the tomato and brisket dish that he had dried today, poured it into an instant noodles bucket, and then flushed it directly into a hot water.
After a while, he took a bite and found that the tomato brisket was not good enough, so he took a handful of dried tomatoes and put them in. "It smells so good, give me a bucket."
"Go and do it yourself."
After a while, several people had already made instant noodles.
The cooking bag and instant noodles look very luxurious.
"This tomato brisket tastes good, it's good to eat meat with big stutters." A technician forked up a large piece of beef brisket.
"Add a few dried tomatoes to ensure that you open up a new world."
"Really?"
Huang Meiqin did not interrupt, but was thinking about how to use new drying technology to develop products while eating.
A technician who came from the canning factory sucked a mouthful of instant noodles and then joking: "Director Huang, how do you think pre-made dishes and instant noodles are combined?"
"Pre-made dishes and instant noodles?" Huang Meiqin shook her head and said, "What about the cost?"
"Cost..." The technician also thought: "The cost of a small portion of the cooking bag in our factory is about 2 yuan to 2 yuan to 2 yuan. The cost of Monan instant noodles factory should not be high, right?"
The instant noodles they ate at this time were produced by their own company.
To be precise, it is the "Jiayuan instant noodles" under the Monan Branch. The retail price of a barrel is about four or five yuan.
Another technician picked up the instant noodles bucket: "The ex-factory price of this instant noodles factory is about three or five yuan, and the cost is about two yuan. If you add a cooking bag, it is either that it cannot be sold, or the retail price has to be higher than eight yuan, so you will barely make a little profit."
The technician who just proposed to combine the cooking bag and instant noodles also thought about some of the situations: "In fact, you can consider it. For example, meat patties, fish sausages, fish balls, etc. made with Egyptian fish that are very cheap now, it will not increase much cost."
"Abin, you can consider using mushrooms. The morel production in the factory next door is very large, and you can make morel dishes."
"When it comes to morels, our technology should have a big purpose in mushroom drying, right?"
"Of course, our room temperature drying technology can retain the flavor of the ingredients almost 100%. In addition, mushroom ingredients are more suitable for dehydration. I guess they will come to us soon to cooperate with us."
While everyone was having midnight snacks, they discussed various application directions.
Whether it is traditional dry food or new dry food, it is within the scope of discussion.
Some people even proposed very strange directions.
For example, the female technician who was responsible for recording experimental data proposed a more special direction, which is the application of hemodialysis direction.
Because her mother is suffering from uremia, she has to go to the hospital for dialysis every week, which brings great inconvenience and also has a huge burden on the patient's family doctor.
Huang Meiqin did not refute this research direction, but said that she would write a report to the scientific research department to ask for a feasibility study there.
After all, to achieve dialysis, it is not as simple as pumping water from the human body, but rather to separate the harmful components in the blood. Instead, the water does not require a large amount of separation.
But to directionally separate harmful components in the blood, specialized silicon carbide nanotubes are required, and they may not necessarily work.
Among them, the harmful components of small molecules and ionic harmful components during the dialysis process are indeed of research value.
For example, uric acid, urea, and creatinine are all small molecules, and potassium ions and hydrogen ions are all ions.
But silicon carbide nanotubes may not be able to separate proteins from macromolecules.
Therefore, the future of this research and development direction is estimated to be combined with other separation technologies before it can be applied to hemodialysis and completely realize the low-cost and convenient treatment of hemodialysis.
But at least this is a good direction.
After all, judging from the current silicon carbide nanotubes, the separation cost is very low. Huang Meiqin estimated that the scientific research department will be interested in this direction.
(This chapter ends)