Chapter 244: Dealing with the Crisis

Chapter 244: Dealing with the Crisis

Chapter 244: Dealing with the Crisis
Before we knew it, it was already July.

The durian season in Shanmei is coming to an end. The local weather in early and midsummer this year was relatively good. Although it rained, it did not rain for a week or two in a row, which is conducive to ensuring the quality of durian.

Generally speaking, in order to ensure the quality of durian, if heavy rain continues for two or three days, the durian can only be picked as durian puree and by-products a week after the rain and cannot be sold as fresh fruit.

If there is a short rain or two, you only need to rest for a day or two.

This mandatory regulation is to ensure the quality of fresh fruit. Durian will easily become watery and bland during periods of heavy rain.

Even though the durian planting areas approved by Hailufeng Company are all mountainous and sloping, once there are continuous heavy rains, it is difficult to avoid the occurrence of rain fruits.

When rain fruit appears, the best solution is to take it to the factory for deep processing. It must not be sold as fresh fruit, otherwise it will easily ruin its reputation.

This is also one of the advantages of Hailufeng Company.

If it is a free-model durian planting industry, no matter how many times the government or industry associations warn, those greedy people will still choose to sell fresh durian for the sake of profit.

Just like the kiwifruit in Zhouzhi County, the local kiwifruit association does constantly emphasize when to pick the kiwifruit, but it has no binding force at all and depends entirely on the farmers' self-consciousness. Once someone can't resist the temptation, it is easy to pick the kiwifruit in advance, causing the kiwifruit to die and never ripen.

Only a management model with strong constraints like that of Hailufeng Company can avoid getting out of control.

Just when Hailufeng Company was developing steadily.

A new round of iron ore trade war has also broken out.

Jiang Miao naturally saw the relevant information.

In the first week of July, iron ore prices rose by nearly 13%, and prices are still rising.

Looking through the relevant reports from the market research department, Jiang Miao frowned unconsciously.

Because he saw in the report that the price of imported borax soared from 3400 yuan per ton at the beginning of the year to around 4800 yuan.

This price increase trend made Jiang Miao frown.

Among the consumable auxiliary materials of modified bean threads, boric acid and glycerin are the core. To produce one ton of modified bean threads, approximately 120 kg to 340 kg of high-concentration boric acid is required, depending on different product specifications.

If tens of millions of tons of modified soybean threads need to be produced every year in the future, millions of tons of high-concentration boric acid will be consumed every year.

Currently, the country can only produce 40 tons of borax each year, and then imports about 30 tons of borax from Rio Tinto in Ottoman and Amerika.

With the current technology, an average of 0.6 tons of boric acid can be produced from every ton of borax. Taking into account the raw material and price costs, each ton of boric acid costs about RMB 9000.

Millions of tons of boric acid means large-scale import of borax, with the import volume being at least several million tons, which will undoubtedly quickly push up the international market price of borax.

Jiang Miao looked at the market research department's survey report on domestic boron mines, and his face became even more gloomy after reading it.

The domestic boron ore reserves are only 3500 million tons, of which the exploitable resources are about 20% to 40%. Even if some hidden mining areas are included, it still cannot withstand the annual consumption of several million tons.

Without imports, it is impossible to expand the production capacity of modified bean threads.

Imports will quickly push up the international price of borax.

Jiang Miao tapped his fingers on the desk and fell into deep thought as he looked at the reports.

From this resource war, the domestic lithium battery industry has become very prosperous due to the emergence of sponge batteries, which has led to smooth imports of lithium ore. Foreign countries have basically no intention of causing trouble in this regard. Obviously, Western capital knows that lithium batteries are no longer important, and even if they do cause trouble, they will only cause trouble for themselves.

After all, lithium batteries are only being used abroad now, and many domestic power batteries and energy storage batteries have begun to be updated and are preparing to switch to sponge batteries.

Therefore, Western capital did not target lithium mines.

But they have set their sights on copper and bauxite.

The fundamental reason is that the current domestic power technology and electric transportation are in full swing, requiring a large amount of copper and bauxite.

For example, in China's copper mines in Africa, even in areas where there is no way to develop copper mines, Western capital has mobilized various forces to destroy transportation lines, making it impossible to transport the copper mines smoothly after mining.

After all, several large copper producers in Africa are landlocked. As long as the coastal areas do not agree to use the roads, or the situation is unstable, or the transportation lines are destroyed, it may make it difficult to transport the minerals.

Domestic companies have been forced to use transport aircraft to replace part of the transportation of copper ingots to alleviate the problem of insufficient land transportation capacity.

As for the bauxite producing area, there has been unrest in recent months, and local mining and transportation have basically stopped.

Australian bauxite is taking the opportunity to raise prices.

After seeing these situations, Jiang Miao felt more and more that the supply of boric acid could not be solved by relying on imports. For example, the current domestic imported borax is concentrated in two core suppliers, Osman and America. This relatively single supply channel is too fragile.

He closed his eyes and rested, various information emerged in his mind. This information was all the information he had browsed before or collected through the identification panel.

Regarding the supply problem of borax, since we cannot rely on imports and domestic borax production capacity cannot keep up, the best solution is to directly remove the source of the problem and simply not use boric acid.

Jiang Miao quickly found two alternative options for replacing boric acid in the database in his mind.

One is silicic acid.

The other is phosphoric acid.

Silicic acid, like boric acid, is a weak acid, and the central atom is in the highest valence state. The silicon atom in silicic acid and the boron atom in boric acid form a tetrahedral structure with the oxygen atom. Silicic acid can form a polyacid similar to boric acid, such as metasilicic acid, polysilicic acid, etc. They can all be partially ionized in aqueous solution, and the degree of ionization is relatively small.

Phosphoric acid has similar properties to boric acid. It is also a ternary weak acid that ionizes step by step in aqueous solution.

Under certain conditions, phosphoric acid can also form a variety of acid salts, such as dihydrogen phosphate, hydrogen phosphate, etc., and boric acid can also form similar acid salts. When both react with some metal ions, they can generate insoluble salts, such as boric acid and magnesium ions can form magnesium borate precipitates, phosphoric acid and calcium ions can form calcium phosphate precipitates, etc.

Whether it is silicic acid or phosphoric acid, Jiang Miao believes that the supply problem can be effectively solved.

The raw materials of silicate are widely found in soil and rocks.

As for phosphoric acid, it is because Hailufeng Company has the technology. Currently, United Mining has opened a phosphate mining base in the northern part of Zhelimu City in the south of the desert. Using biological mining technology, it can mine about 8 tons of phosphate at low cost every year.

It is not difficult to carry out large-scale mining. As long as there is official support, the phosphate production capacity can be increased to millions of tons in less than a year; within ten years, the scale of annual production of phosphate can be increased to tens of millions of tons.

Therefore, whether it is silicate or phosphoric acid, foreign countries have no way to interfere with domestic production.

Considering that the modified soybean threads will be put into large-scale production starting from September, although there are only about 100 million mu of Xiansi soybeans produced in September, only about 12 tons of soybean threads can be produced, and about 2 tons of boric acid are needed.

But this accounts for almost 4.7% of the total annual borax consumption in the country.

This is just the beginning.

Western capital forces are certainly not blind. Once they realize the sharp increase in domestic borax consumption and the important strategic uses of modified bean threads, they will certainly not allow the domestic bean thread industry to develop easily.

The Ottomans are even more crazy than the Huskies. If they can extort a large sum of money, they will definitely choose to cooperate with Western capital.

After thinking it over, Jiang Miao decided that he should do it himself.

After arranging other work, he came to the fiber laboratory at the headquarters and began to study how to use silicic acid, phosphoric acid, and even sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, etc. to produce artificial fibers similar to boric acid-modified soybean silk.

In fact, some people at Dousi Lab are already researching alternative products in this area, but the research progress is slow and the products produced are not very good.

Jiang Miao first looked through the relevant research reports from Dousi Laboratory.

He found that those researchers were all imitating Kou Hui's modification plan and did not have much of their own ideas.

Although some properties of silicate and phosphoric acid are similar to those of boric acid, there are certainly many major differences between the two. It is definitely not feasible to completely imitate the boric acid modification scheme.

Through the identification panel, he could see the various changes during each reaction. In less than three days.

Jiang Miao saw the reaction and structural products that he needed.

Diatomaceous earth, glycerin, dilute hydrochloric acid and concentrated silicic acid are used as raw materials, and bean threads are added according to a specific process to produce diatom bean threads.

The stiffness limit of diatom bean silk is 496GPa, the tensile strength limit is 2.64GPa, the density is 1.5 to 1.9 grams per cubic centimeter, the heat resistance limit is 306 degrees Celsius, the impact kinetic energy absorption effect is 2.76 times that of ordinary steel, and the service life is much longer than that of boron bean silk.

Except that it is slightly heavier than boron bean silk, its other properties are relatively good, especially its high temperature resistance, which has exceeded 300 degrees Celsius.

The disadvantage of silicone bean silk is that its unit weight is slightly higher and its elasticity is relatively poor, but it can already replace a large part of boron bean silk.

In addition, during the research on silicon bean silk, Jiang Miao also discovered several relatively special silicon bean silk fibers.

Among them, Silicon Bean Silk No. 1 is the type that can replace the boron bean silk. In addition, there are three other types, namely Silicon Bean Silk No. 2, Silicon Bean Silk No. 3, and Silicon Bean Silk No. 4.

Silicon bean silk No. 2, also known as "hollow diatom tube" and "mercury silica tube", because the bean silk components inside this thing have been completely removed after high-temperature treatment.

The hollow diatom tube that has been freed of its bean silk components is actually a type of silicon nanotube.

Its function does not lie in its own strength, stiffness, etc., because after removing the soy silk protein, its strength and stiffness are similar to those of ordinary glass fiber.

The reason why Jiang Miao specially assigned a number to this thing is mainly because after the hollow diatom tube is filled with mercury, superconductivity can be achieved as long as the mercury is in liquid state.

In other words, hollow diatom tubes plus liquid mercury are room-temperature superconductors.

After all, the melting point of mercury is minus 38.87 degrees Celsius and the boiling point is 356.6 degrees Celsius. Within this range, mercury is in liquid form.

Although mercury is highly toxic, safety can be guaranteed as long as it is well sealed.

Compared with the slight risk of toxicity, its room-temperature superconductivity is its real value.

Jiang Miao had never expected that he would be able to complete the research and development of room-temperature superconductors under such a coincidence of circumstances.

The reason why he thought of removing the internal protein of the silicon bean silk was actually to test the high temperature resistance limit of the silicon bean silk. After decomposing the internal protein at high temperature, he found that the conductivity of this new material was very strange during the test, so he conducted in-depth research.

Silicon bean thread No. 3 is similar to Silicon bean thread No. 2, but its hollow part is made through an extrusion process, with graphite powder added, and then sintered at high temperature.

Therefore, Silicon Bean Silk No. 3, also known as "graphite-diatom tube", can also be called silicon carbide tube.

Its characteristics are high temperature resistance, it can withstand the extreme high temperature of 2854 degrees Celsius, and its hardness is also very high, almost the same as diamond. It can also be used as a semiconductor material.

Of course, if that were all, ordinary silicon carbide could do the job.

The real reason why silicon carbide tubes are given numbers is that this new material has properties similar to carbon nanotubes, that is, high strength. Its stiffness reaches 885GPa, and its production is simpler than carbon nanotubes. It is easy to produce silicon carbide tubes of dozens of meters in length. It also has high temperature resistance that carbon nanotubes do not have.

As for Silicon Bean Silk No. 4, it is also a new material derived from hollow diatom tubes.

No. 4 uses chemical deposition technology to form a dense layer of silver on the surface, so it is also called "silver-plated silicon tube".

After being silver-plated, the hollow diatom tube will form a micro-electric field inside the tube when electricity is applied. As long as metal particles are sucked into it, they will be accelerated by the Lorentz force. Because the hollow tube is at the nanometer size and the interior is in a vacuum state, the speed of the metal particles accelerated by the electromagnetic will quickly reach a very high level.

What is the use of this thing?

Miniature electromagnetic gun?
Jiang Miao was still thinking, but he felt that this material might have certain potential. After all, in his laboratory, he used the smallest diameter artificial spider silk as raw material to create hollow tubes with a pore size of only 18 nanometers.

This thing can generally only pass through metal ions, that is, single particles.

Metal particles can be ejected through electromagnetic acceleration, or particles on the surface of the semiconductor can be forcibly absorbed.

Jiang Miao didn't know how to use it for a moment, but still recorded the characteristics and manufacturing process of this material.

In fact, Diatom Bean Silk No. 1 is the main purpose of his scientific research this time.

By the time he completed this series of research, it was already September.

He once again secretly went to the Minqin base in the northwest.

This time, in addition to arranging technical updates, he also casually inspected the Northwest region. After all, it was Jiang Miao's first time to set foot in the Northwest region.

at the same time.

The airship company also built a test site covering an area of ​​more than 50 square kilometers in the desert around Minqin County.

boom!
Thousands of cubic meters of hydrogen airbags exploded in the closed test area, raising yellow sand all over the sky.

Wan Gaofeng, general manager of the airship company, was in the underground bunker and put down the telescope. "Baomu, you keep an eye on the tests these days. I need to go to the Minqin base to do something these days."

Chen Baomu, the person in charge of the test base, nodded: "Okay."

As for what Wan Gaofeng was going to do, Chen Baomu was very tactful and did not ask casually. Before he came to be in charge of this testing base, he had received very professional confidentiality training.

Hailufeng Company is different from ordinary private enterprises. It involves a lot of confidential and sensitive technologies internally. Therefore, many employees who may be exposed to sensitive and confidential technologies must receive comprehensive confidentiality training.

Wan Gaofeng continued, "Baomu, you must sort out the recent explosion test reports before this afternoon and print a copy for me."

"no problem."

That afternoon, Wan Gaofeng took an off-road vehicle and returned to the Minqin base via a hidden road.

As soon as he arrived at the Minqin base, he went straight to the airship factory.

Among the 10 airship docks, the foundations and supporting facilities of 4 airship docks have been almost installed, and now only the dome part is missing.

On the way back, he saw that a lot of soybeans were already being harvested.

Then he came to the Dousi Component Factory.

"What? Can't produce for the time being?"

Ma Donghai, the director of the component factory, explained helplessly: "Boss Wan, it's not my fault, but the boss asked us to modify the process. Now some of the processes and supporting facilities are being remodeled."

"Why?" Wan Gaofeng was confused.

Ma Donghai whispered, “I heard that because of the trade war, the boss doesn’t want to use boric acid as a raw material because he’s worried about the safety of the import channels and the price increase.”

Hearing this, Wan Gaofeng frowned and said, "But can the products made with the new technology meet the standards?"

"Don't worry, I looked at the product parameters. It's just a little heavier than the old model, but its strength and durability have been greatly improved."

"Is that so?" Wan Gaofeng suddenly thought of another question: "Donghai, give me a copy of the parameters of the new product. I want the dome's design team to recalculate it to avoid any problems."

"Okay, I'll send you a WeChat message?"

Wan Gaofeng nodded: "Well, send it directly. It's just product parameter data, no need to keep it confidential."

"Okay, wait a moment." Ma Donghai lowered his head and operated his mobile phone. After a while, several product parameters were sent to Wan Gaofeng's mobile phone.

After Wan Gaofeng got the product parameters, he quickly called the dome design team of the airship dock and asked them to analyze the components of the new product as soon as possible to see if it could be built according to the original plan.

The people in the dome design team were almost going crazy. If Hailufeng Company hadn't paid them very readily, they would have wanted to curse.

(End of this chapter)