Chapter 305 Precise Evaporation

Chapter 305 Precise Evaporation

Chapter 305 Precise Evaporation
Minqin County, Western Suburbs High-tech Industrial Park.

The third silicon carbide nanotube laboratory of Minqin Group.

Since developing specific silicon carbide nanotubes that can efficiently extract pure water, Minqin Group has not rested on its laurels. Instead, it has used its huge cash flow to continuously increase investment in various scientific research projects.

This third laboratory is the team responsible for researching the precise evaporation technology of silicon carbide nanotubes.

"Dr. Liu, come over here and take a look. Aaron seems to have discovered something."

"Oh? I'll be right there."

After hanging up the phone, Liu Tongxin went directly to the destination, which was the working area of ​​the fifth group of their laboratory.

The person who had just called was already waiting for him at the door.

"Dr. Liu, please come in."

"Team Leader Huang, you're too polite."

The skinny Huang Chongyi swiped his card to open the door and took Liu Touxin into the experimental area.

As they walked, Huang Chongyi briefly introduced the situation to him: "Aaron made a batch of specially modified silicon carbide nanotubes the day before yesterday. Among them, experimental material No. 582 showed a new characteristic during the test."

At this time, the two men had walked into the room wearing protective clothing and breathing helmets. This kind of nanomaterial research and development experiment has strict safety management because the nanomaterial is likely to cause hazards similar to asbestos after entering the body.

After putting on protective clothing and a breathing helmet, Liu Tongxin had already learned part of the situation from Huang Chongyi.

Enter the real experimental area.

He saw the excited Fang Tenglong, a young man in his twenties, who was also wearing protective clothing and a breathing helmet.

Through the communication channel built into the breathing helmet, Liu Tongxin asked: "Along, I heard that you have developed a special kind of silicon carbide nanotubes?"

Fang Tenglong nodded with a smile on his face: "Yes, Dr. Liu, please take a look at the report. This is the relevant experiment I did overnight last night."

After taking the document, Liu Tongxin lowered his head and read it carefully. After looking at it for a while, there was a hint of surprise in his eyes.

This specially modified silicon carbide nanotube can absorb light water from pure water under a specific negative pressure, while retaining heavy water and super heavy water.

This is actually precise isotope separation technology.

The pure water in the laboratory has undergone the first purification and contains almost no other impurities. Therefore, the secondary isotope separation can obtain extremely pure superheavy water and heavy water mixture.

Hydrogen has three isotopes: protium, deuterium and tritium.

Protium is light water, deuterium is heavy water, and tritium is super heavy water.

Since the half-life of tritium is only over twelve years, the content of this isotope in natural water bodies is very low, almost non-existent.

The content of protium in natural water is 99.98%, and the content of deuterium in natural water is 0.02%.

Therefore, among the heavy water separated by nanotube technology, 99.9999% is mainly deuterium, with only a very small amount of tritium.

Looking at the transparent container in Fang Tenglong's hand, this is the 1 kilogram of high-purity heavy water refined last night.

According to the data in the experimental report, the cost of refining heavy water using silicon carbide nanotubes is about the same as that of extracting pure water using ordinary silicon carbide nanotubes, which is about a few cents per cubic meter.

You should know that using the current international mainstream technology to refine one cubic meter of heavy water costs about 200 million yuan. This is the refining cost in China. If it is abroad, the cost will be even higher.

The core use of high-purity heavy water is naturally the nuclear industry.

The cost of one cubic meter is several million.

And the cost is a few cents per cubic meter.

There is a world of difference between the two.

What is even more frightening is that the technology of extracting heavy water with silicon carbide nanotubes is very simple. As long as the equipment is available, any sewage treatment plant, water plant, or seawater desalination plant in the country can produce it quickly without the need for large-scale changes to the production line.

The key is that the heavy water refined by this production process is of very high purity and can be directly used as the raw material of hydrogen bombs or as a heavy water neutron buffer in the nuclear industry.

Liu Tongxin looked at Fang Tenglong and asked, "Can heavy water and super heavy water be further separated?"

Fang Tenglong nodded. "Yes, but this morning I further separated several hundred kilograms of heavy water. Through isotope determination technology, I found that the content of super-heavy water in the remaining concentrate continued to increase. I was worried about a nuclear accident, so I stopped further purification."

"You handled it very well. If you continue to concentrate the heavy water, there is a real possibility of a nuclear accident."

"This is also the reason why I hurriedly notified Dr. Liu to come over." Huang Chongyi also knew that this matter was of great importance.

You should know that the ultra-precise separation technology developed by Fang Tenglong can theoretically completely separate the three isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, forming high-purity hydrogen, deuterium and tritium with a purity of more than 99.9999%.

If it is high-purity protium or deuterium, the problem is not big, after all, these two isotopes are relatively stable types. However, the superheavy water formed by tritium is an unstable radioactive element. Once the concentration reaches more than 90%, its continuous beta decay will release electrons and antineutrinos.

Of course, beta decay is not as harmful as other nuclear decays. This is mainly because this type of decay has very weak penetrating power. As long as researchers do not come into contact with it naked, there will generally be no health risks.

The product of tritium decay is helium-3, which is very valuable.

In other words, if we look at the transition from nuclear decay and the water content on the earth's surface, the world's water bodies contain about 14 billion tons of superheavy water. If all of this superheavy water turns into helium-3 through nuclear decay, the earth is actually not short of helium-3.

Then why are humans still salivating over the moon's helium-3 resources?

The answer, of course, is that the separation and purification technology for heavy water and extra-heavy water is not good and the cost is relatively high. In particular, the purification cost of extra-heavy water is much higher than that of heavy water.

Even if super-heavy water is obtained, it still needs to be stored for decades before most of the tritium in the super-heavy water can decay into helium-3.

Taking into account the purification costs, management costs, storage costs, and time costs, it would be better to send a rocket directly to the moon to mine and refine helium-3.

Although the superheavy water in the Earth's water bodies produces a large amount of helium-3 through decay every year, helium has two very serious problems.

One is that helium is an inert element. It almost never combines with other elements, but instead forms helium gas.

The second problem is that helium is very light. Once it appears in the atmosphere, it will not accumulate on the ground, but will float upward quickly and then drift into outer space.

This is also why, although helium is the second most abundant element in the periodic table and should be the second most abundant element in the universe, it is mixed into rare gases on the earth's surface.

The root cause is that the earth has no way to preserve helium and can only watch helium escape into outer space and become stardust in outer space.

Now Fang Tenglong has developed a set of technologies that have brought new hope to the production of helium-3 resources. It only needs to use the desalination plants along the coast to continuously extract heavy water and extra heavy water, and then further separate these heavy water and extra heavy water to separate high-purity extra heavy water.

Then, if we store the heavy water, we only need to wait 12.3 years, that is, after the first half-life, half of the tritium in the stored heavy water will be converted into helium-3.

Theoretically, 1 ton of superheavy water can produce approximately 136 kilograms of helium 3 after the first half-life.

With the technology currently mastered by the Minqin Group, it only needs to add two more purification processes to the seawater desalination plant's process, and the cost of refining one ton of helium-3 will be about hundreds of thousands of yuan.

Of course, if these costs are spread over the production of fresh water in a desalination plant, the refining cost does not actually require hundreds of thousands of dollars per ton.

Even if the production cost is hundreds of thousands of yuan per ton, it is still worth the money in comparison.

因为理论上，1吨氦3通过可控核聚变可以产生大约10亿千瓦时的电能，哪怕是按照目前现在国内的平均电价0.4元每千瓦时计算，10亿千瓦时的电能也价值4亿元左右。

However, this calculation is obviously not accurate enough.

After all, the other costs of controlled nuclear fusion are also not small.

However, if helium-3 can be directly used as the nuclear fuel for controlled nuclear fusion, it can reduce some of the technical difficulties of controlled nuclear fusion.

Although the current controlled nuclear fusion projects around the world are being hyped up, as if commercial operation of controlled nuclear fusion can be achieved in a few years.

In fact, there are many flaws in current controlled nuclear fusion.

These include material problems in the reaction system, control problems of ultra-high temperature plasma, neutron irradiation problems, hydrogen embrittlement problems, and nuclear fuel problems.

If helium-3 is used as the nuclear fuel for controlled nuclear fusion, at least three problems can be solved, namely the neutron irradiation problem, the hydrogen embrittlement problem, and the nuclear fuel problem.

The two problems of neutron irradiation and hydrogen embrittlement are also the reason why the material requirements for controlled nuclear fusion systems are very stringent.

It just so happens that the nuclear fusion reaction produced by helium-3 does not produce severe hydrogen embrittlement and neutron irradiation, which further reduces the overall material requirements of the system.

At the same time, Minqin Group also acquired the mercury-silicon tube room-temperature superconducting technology from its parent company Hailufeng.

So now if these technologies can be combined, controlled nuclear fusion seems to be just the last step away.

In fact, the problem of high-temperature plasma fluid control in the last step is no longer a big problem, because in recent years, China has made a lot of achievements in AI technology and engineering simulation technology.

For example, Changan's Star Ring Energy Company has achieved considerable results, deriving a new technology route from traditional tokamaks and stellarators.

If Xinghuan Energy can obtain technical and material support from Hailufeng Company and Minqin Group, it is estimated that it will be able to develop a commercial controlled nuclear fusion system within a few years.

Liu Tongxin thought for a while and felt that this matter was not something he could decide alone, so he left the experimental area and made a phone call through the special internal line.

beep...

"Hello, I'm Liu Tongxin from the Third Laboratory of Minqin Group. Is this Mr. Du?"

"Liu Tongxin?"

After a while, the person on the other end of the phone seemed to have figured out his identity, and asked briefly, "Dr. Liu, is there anything I can help you with?"

"Mr. Du, our laboratory has recently developed a new technology that may involve strategic security. I need you to come here in person."

When Du Guojian heard about the technology involving strategic security, he immediately became serious: "Involving strategic security? Well, you are still in the laboratory, right?"

"Yes, I'm still in the lab."

"Wait a minute, let me check my schedule..." After a while, Du Guojian's voice came from the other end of the line again: "Dr. Liu, are you free at 1:30 pm?"

"Have."

"Okay, prepare the relevant materials. I'll be there at 1:30 pm, but I only have an hour."

"Okay, I'll try to arrange the report as best as possible."

"See you this afternoon then."

hang up the phone.

Liu Tongxin checked the time on his phone. It was already 11:30 in the morning. He quickly turned to look at Huang Chongyi and said, "Chongyi, you guys eat first and try to get back to the lab by 12:30. Then prepare the materials. I'll sort them out with you guys later."

"Okay." Huang Chongyi also nodded seriously.

Soon all the employees of the third laboratory left work early to have lunch.

For this kind of scientific research team, their working hours are often not fixed, especially when they encounter such major projects.

Many of them only spent about half an hour to have lunch, and then hurried back to the laboratory to comprehensively organize various experimental data.

Liu Tongxin did not go back either, but stayed to help. Having led several projects, he was very skilled in reporting on this kind of scientific research projects, which greatly reduced the workload of Huang Chongyi, Fang Tenglong and others.

Before I knew it, it was already 1:30 in the afternoon.

Du Guojian's electric minibus slowly stopped at the gate of the third laboratory.

Liu Tongxin said with a smile: "Mr. Du, welcome to the Third Laboratory for your guidance."

"Dr. Liu, stop joking. I'm just a manager, not a scientific researcher. I'm not here to give you any guidance today. I'm just here to listen to your lectures and serve you." Du Guojian smiled and shook his head.

Although Minqin Group has state-owned assets, it has always been managed by Hailufeng Company, so the company's culture also favors Hailufeng Company.

There is a very obvious characteristic of Hailufeng-related companies, that is, managers and scientific researchers are completely separated, and there is no such thing as managers being listed on scientific research projects.

If you want to do research and development, you can only become a scientific researcher.

If you want to engage in administrative management, you can only become a manager.

The two cannot be confused.

This regulation is mainly intended to prevent the company's administrative personnel from taking advantage of their positions to monopolize the scientific research results of scientific researchers.

That's why Du Guojian said that he came here to listen to lectures and provide services, mainly focusing on the content that all managers received special training before taking up their posts.

(End of this chapter)