Chapter 280 "Timber"
Southern Jiangxi.
The atmosphere of the Spring Festival this year has become much stronger because the income of local farmers has generally increased. Hailufeng Company has hired nearly 15,000 employees locally, and the affiliated Hero Dairy also has thousands of employees, which has formed a huge consumption power.
At the same time, the local procurement and construction of Hailufeng Company has also attracted many related enterprises and self-employed businesses.
However, like Tian Huiwen of Hucheng Sugar Industry, Kong Keji, who has been in charge of the branch management for nearly three years, is one of the few management teams who have not been transferred by the company. He also stayed at the branch during the Spring Festival this year.
During the first day of the Chinese New Year, he greeted his parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends in his hometown through videos, and also sent red envelopes of several thousand yuan.
Then he devoted his energy to his work.
From the second day of the Chinese New Year to the fifth day of the Chinese New Year, he expressed his condolences to employees who were still at their posts on behalf of the company, and also sent New Year red envelopes to everyone on behalf of Jiang Miao.
When he arrived at the Hongdu area located in southern Jiangxi, Kong Keji met with local management, technicians and employees.
Hailufeng Company’s industries in Hongdu are not manufacturing and agriculture, but scientific research industries. Among the 15 laboratories under the branch, 8 are located in Hongdu area.
Hailufeng Company's laboratory is a dual leadership, and the local branch is managed in terms of logistics and technical industrialization, while the technical research and development and technical personnel management are managed in the scientific research and development department.
In fact, Hailufeng Company’s laboratories in various places can be found by numbering them.
The number at the beginning of the laboratory in Lingnan is 1, Ganzhou is 2, desert is 3, Qiongzhou is 4, and Ganzhou is 5.
Laboratories in other regions will also be numbered according to the time and scale of entry.
206 Laboratory Location.
This is a laboratory for renovation of an old factory, covering an area of about 150 acres.
After sending a red envelope, Kong Keji, who wanted to leave, was pulled by Shi Hao, the technical team leader of the laboratory: "Manager Kong, our project has achieved some results. If Manager Kong is convenient, we can go and take a look."
"Achievement?" Kong Keji looked at the time. It was almost 11:30 in the morning. He nodded: "Yes."
Under Shi Hao's leadership, the group came to the factory that was transformed into a laboratory.
This is a biological laboratory.
To be more accurate, it is a large fungal materials laboratory.
Originally, Shi Hao wanted to take him into the core area of the laboratory, but Kong Keji refused because he needed to wear protective clothing and complete disinfection into the core area. It was too troublesome, so he asked Shi Hao to introduce the situation in the outer area of the laboratory.
In a warehouse where materials are piled up.
There are all kinds of "wood" piled up inside.
"These are the semi-artificial woods we produce through fungal cultivation technology." Shi Hao patted one of the woods.
"Where are all indicators?" Kong Keji didn't care about how technology was implemented, because he was very self-aware. He was not a technician, so there was no need to understand too much in-depth how technology was implemented.
"We have carried out 17 technical iterations in total, and this is the first generation..." Shi Hao was not sure what Kong Keji thought, so he carefully introduced the entire technology research and development process.
The technical principle of this project is to quickly dehydrate the bamboo through the rich bamboo materials in southern Jiangxi, and then crush the overall structure of the bamboo to turn it into bamboo fibers composed of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin.
After the dried bamboo fibers are produced, the bamboo fibers are placed in a specific culture container and then injected with nutrient solution and specific fungi.
These specifically modified fungi have lost the ability to decompose lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose, but can only absorb nutrients such as glucose and lactic acid.
Through about three months of cultivation, these fungi fill the entire container, while cellulose, hemicellulose and chitin formed during fungal growth will be firmly combined with bamboo fibers, turning it into an organic whole.
In the early days, Shi Hao's team did not breed suitable bacterial strains. Until November last year, a relatively good bacterial strain appeared among the 17th generation bacterial strains they cultivated.
This strain will not decompose other lignins, cellulose, and hemicellulose, but will synthesize a large amount of cellulose, hemicellulose and chitin. Moreover, the bacteria produced by this strain are also very easy to combine with other cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin.
After three months of cultivation, they have cultivated dozens of artificial wood.
"This artificial wood, after inactivation and drying, has almost the same performance as ordinary wood."
Kong Keji looked at the white textured wood in front of him and held it in his hand to weigh it: "It's quite light, it's not high in density, right?"
Shi Hao nodded: "It's not really high, it's a little lower than bamboo density, about 0.67 grams per cubic centimeter."
Another researcher explained: "Essentially, our project is to use fungal bacteria to replace chemical glue, avoiding the disadvantage of synthetic wood releasing formaldehyde and harmful ingredients, while also enhancing the overall strength and service life of artificial wood."
"Will this kind of wood expand if it is soaked in water?" Kong Keji asked curiously.
"If you soak in water for a long time, it will definitely expand, but if it is contacted for several hours, it will generally not expand significantly, because after this fungus is inactivated, the holes in its bacterial structure have been fixed and the inside is filled with air." Shi Hao added:
"We will also inject wax liquid into it and inject coconut oil wax to improve the water resistance of artificial wood. Moreover, because artificial wood has a large number of fine holes, these holes will not only produce hydrophobicity, but also self-moisturization after being filled with oil wax. There is no need to waxing, but only a scrub to form a significant wax film."
A researcher handed over a piece of wood: "Manager Kong, this is the artificial wood after the wax is injected."
Kong Keji took it and stroked the cutting surface of the wood with his hands. It was indeed very smooth and had a luster similar to that after waxing. However, when he picked it up, he found that the weight was a bit heavy: "How much has the weight increased?"
Shi Hao took out another piece of wood: "If it is a full injection process, the density is about 0.82 grams per cubic centimeter; if it is a half injection process, it is about 0.75 grams per cubic centimeter, which is the artificial wood with a half injection process."
Kong Keji took it over and weighed it. Sure enough, this piece of wood was lighter. He touched the wax film on it: "Will the flammability of this wood increase with oil wax?"
Shi Hao had no intention of concealing this: "Manager Kong's concerns do exist. At present, waxed artificial wood has strong flammability, similar to eucalyptus."
"Are there an axe?"
"Axe? Yes."
"Get a few pieces of natural wood and bamboo, and if there is any synthetic wood, you can also bring some of them."
Hearing this order, Shi Hao understood that Kong Keji wanted to try the strength and hardness of these woods, and then arranged it.
More than twenty minutes later.
The axe and materials are ready.
Kong Keji picked up the axe, picked up a piece of artificial wood, and raised his hand and slashed it.
Click!
The sharp axe slashed into the artificial wood a few centimeters, but the wood did not have a cracked gap similar to that of natural wood, but instead stuck the axe in it.
He stepped on artificial wood and pulled up the axe.
He looked at the wood with natural pine trees written on the side and went down with an axe.
Click! This time, the pine wood was split along the wood grain, so the pine wood was quickly split.
Turning around, he adjusted the artificial wood just now and found the side full of dense small dots. These dense small dots are the cross-section of bamboo fibers, so this side is similar to the cross-section of wood.
Raise your hand and the axe falls down.
Click!
"Huh?" Kong Keji finally discovered an advantage of artificial wood, that is, its cross-sectional bonding strength is also very good, and it will not be torn apart from the cross-section from the sharp weapon like natural wood.
It has both the lateral strength of natural wood and the longitudinal strength that natural wood does not have.
After splitting the wood for a while, Kong Keji could basically determine that the strength and hardness of these artificial woods are basically the same as that of some better hardwoods, and the hardness is similar to that of light wood.
Seeing that the time was almost time for dinner, Shi Hao suggested, "Manager Kong, lunch time is up, everyone can go to the cafeteria for a simple meal."
"Huh! It's good." Kong Keji put down his axe, unbuttoned his shirt, and took over his assistant's blazer. When I came to the canteen in Hongdu, it was also the Jianghai Restaurant.
For some relatively concentrated institutions, Hailufeng Company often does not set up internal canteens, but instead encloses the canteens in Jianghai Food Mansion, or cooperative enterprises and self-employed restaurants.
Since the company has clear regulations that employees cannot drink alcohol during work or do alcohol during their work, they cannot drink alcoholic beverages for breakfast and lunch, and they can drink by themselves at night, but employees within the company are not allowed to drink alcohol.
Moreover, Hailufeng restaurants such as Jianghai Food Mansion do not sell alcoholic beverages.
Kong Keji is also a person who does not touch alcohol. When Shi Hao and others saw that he did not make any requests for drinking, they naturally would not commit crimes against the wind.
After all, drinking at noon is easy to be reported to the Supervision Department by other employees.
Ordered the dish.
Shi Hao said, "Manager Kong, do you think there is any prospect for this artificial wood?"
Kong Keji took a sip of lemon tea: "The prospect depends on the cost. If the cost is low, everything has prospects; if the cost is high, gold has no prospects."
"We have done a cost estimate. Currently, the cost of producing a square of artificial wood is about 1,500 yuan." Shi Hao scratched his cheek awkwardly, but he immediately added: "If it can be produced on a large scale, it should be compressed to about 800 yuan per square."
Kong Keji did not speak immediately, but looked at his assistant. The assistant checked the current market price of natural wood, and then whispered a few words in his ear.
He shook his head immediately: "Your cost is relatively high, which is higher than the market price of many natural woods, so it is difficult to compete with natural wood."
“We are also trying to reduce costs…”
However, Kong Keji did not listen to Shi Hao's explanation, but interrupted him: "You should be clear that many costs are difficult to compress, such as the purchase price of bamboo and the raw materials of nutrient solution. These things are fixed investments, so it is very difficult for you to compress costs."
Shi Hao and others fell silent immediately.
Kong Keji, who has been managing the production work of Gannan Branch, is very clear about the composition of production costs. Many costs are difficult to compress. He does not think that the cost of artificial wood can be less than 700 yuan per square meter. If you play with low-end products at this price, you will definitely lose all your money.
He mentioned: "You are focused on researching technology and reducing costs. Although it is unlikely that you can reduce too much, it is as much as you can. Leave it to me about technical application!"
"I understand." Shi Hao also woke up and knew that he was putting the cart before the horse. As a person in the scientific research department system, he should not focus on technological industrialization, but on technological improvement.
"Let me talk about the prospects of your technology from the perspective of the market!" Kong Keji thought for a moment and continued:
"The characteristic of artificial wood technology is that it can produce very large integrated wood. Therefore, the direction you should do is to study artificial wood that can directly grow furniture outlines or furniture parts, reducing waste and processing costs in the processing links."
Shi Hao and others nodded quickly, and also took notes on these contents.
"The second direction is to produce distinctive artificial wood. For example, you should study how to artificially add pigments to allow wood to have various colors in the process of cultivating artificial wood."
"For example, you can pretreat bamboo fibers and arrange and combine the bleached bamboo fibers with primary bamboo fibers to see if they can form a structure similar to wood grain."
"Or add some natural wood, spices, etc. with special fragrance, so that wood can exude fragrance for a long time, which can create fragrant wood."
Shi Hao's eyes were bright: "Manager Kong's words are reasonable. We still need to learn more about the industrialization of technology."
Kong Keji took a sip of lemon tea to moisten his throat: "Can artificial wood be added with wax to achieve the purpose of flame retardant by adding other safe ingredients? I think this should be possible. After all, there are many plastics that can be flame retardant now, and there is no reason why wax cannot do it."
"Thank you, Manager Kong, reminds me that after I go back, I will arrange the experiment as soon as possible." Shi Hao said and recorded.
Kong Keji thought about it and planned to give them some sweetness: "In the early stage, we can consider building an experimental wooden flooring factory in southern Ganzhou. If I heard it correctly just now, the thermal expansion coefficient of artificial wood is relatively small, right?"
Hearing this promise, Shi Hao nodded excitedly: "Well, due to fiber reorganization, if it is half-injected wax artificial wood, its thermal expansion coefficient is about 21% of ordinary wood."
"You see, this is the selling point, which is low thermal expansion coefficient, certain self-moisturization, and can woven patterns, and there is no health risk of synthetic wood. These advantages are very suitable for making wooden floors."
"Yes, yes." Shi Hao was like a chicken pecking at rice.
After meals.
afternoon.
The group watched the combustion test of artificial wood again.
Sure enough, the combustion conditions of waxless artificial wood, semi-wax artificial wood, and fully wax artificial wood are very different.
The combustion of fully waxed artificial wood is like candles, while the semi-waxed artificial wood is like oil-rich pine and eucalyptus.
Immediately afterwards, they took Kong Keji and others to see various wood products made of artificial wood. Several researchers with woodworking hobbies have been fiddling with a lot of things here over the past six months.
Including various wooden models, wooden furniture, canoes, drones, car shells, etc.
These things are the brains of the researchers and they are also hand-processed through machine tools.
Kong Keji read it casually and went to other laboratories to send red envelopes.
The researchers of Shi Hao's team were not idle either. They began to make research plans based on the direction that Kong Keji recommended at noon.
In order to facilitate research, Shi Hao did not do it in one direction, but planned to divide it into several groups, each group was responsible for one direction.
On the other side.
Kong Keji also came to Laboratory 209.
After hearing about the 206 Laboratory, Dr. Gan Zhiyu, the head of the 209 Laboratory, also introduced the results of their laboratory to him.
"Manager Kong, this is a new type of carbon fiber material our team has researched."
Looking at the large bundle of thin silk in front of him, Kong Keji asked, "What is the purpose of this material?"
"The manager should know that our company has developed a high-strength aluminum-silicon nanotube in the laboratory of Minqin, which has very good conductivity, between copper and silver."
"Well, I've heard of it." Kong Keji immediately understood what the other party meant: "Can you use materials like this as wire?"
"Yes, through chemical deposition process, we deposited a layer of carbon on the surface of the silicon nanotube, thus forming a carbon nanotube, whose conductivity is almost 48 times that of copper wires..." Dr. Gan Zhiyu talked endlessly about the results of their team.
"Can copper and aluminum be used in wires?"
Gan Zhiyu nodded: "Yes, and because of its very good conductivity, our wires can be made relatively small, and the losses during the electric transmission process are also relatively small."
Kong Keji looked at the thin silk in front of him and sighed: "It seems that the company's investment in scientific research projects will receive generous returns."
Gan Zhiyu, who was not arrogant, replied modestly: "We are all standing on the shoulders of giants. After all, without silicon nanotube materials, there is no low-cost carbon nanotube materials."
"Is there any difficulty in this technology now?"
Gan Zhiyu said helplessly: "The difficulty is that the cost is too high. The main difficulty is the yield. In order to ensure the yield, we used high-purity nanocarbon powder to ensure that the production wires achieve good conductivity."
"Take it slow, you can consider improving the process."
"This is also the direction we are currently working on."
Kong Keji is not a person who pursues product perfection too much, so he asked: "Can you achieve low-cost production by reducing conductive properties?"
"Uh? No, because once too much impurity is deposited in the carbon nanotube, its conductivity will plummet and then degrade to about the same as ordinary carbon fiber."
Kong Keji, who was not too disappointed, patted him on the shoulder: "Then continue to improve!"
(This chapter ends)