1. The Beginning of Human Civilization -- The Use of Fire
Millions of years ago, human beings lived an extremely simple and primitive life, relying on hunting for a living, and eating raw meat and wild fruits. According to archaeologists, at least 500,000 years ago, we can find evidence of human fire, that is, the Beijing Zhoukoudian Peking ape man lived in the place found by the fire fossilized animal bones. With fire, the primitive man said goodbye to the life of drinking blood. After eating cooked food, human beings improved their health and intelligence, and enhanced their ability to survive. Later, people learned to make fire by friction and drill wood for fire, so that fire can be carried around. Thus, people are no longer the caretaker of the fire, but the fire maker who can control the fire. Fire is a weapon used by mankind to invent tools and create wealth, the use of fire can produce a variety of chemical reactions this special, the class began pottery, metallurgy, brewing and other crafts, into a wide range of production, life world.
2. A long history of crafts - pottery
When the pottery is produced, it is difficult to prove. The origin of pottery has been described in different ways, and some people speculate that the most primitive containers for human life were made of twigs, and that a layer of clay was often smeared on the inside and outside of the container in order to make it fire-resistant and dense and seamless. These containers in the process of use, occasionally by fire, in which the branches are burned off, but the clay will not catch fire, not only still retained, and become harder, better than before the fire. This incident gave people great inspiration. Later, people simply stopped using branches as skeletons, and began to consciously pound the clay, mix it with water, knead it until it was very soft, then mold it into various shapes, put it in the sun to dry, and finally set it on a campfire to burn it into the first pottery. About 10,000 years ago, kilns for firing pottery began to appear in China, making it the first country to produce pottery. The invention of pottery was a major breakthrough in manufacturing technology. The pottery process changed the nature of the clay, so that the clay components of silica, aluminum oxide, calcium carbonate (gài), magnesium oxide (měi), etc., in the firing process, a series of chemical changes, so that the pottery with waterproof and durable excellent properties. Therefore, pottery not only has a new technical significance, but also has a new economic meaning and. It makes people deal with food added steaming method, pottery spinning wheel, pottery knife, pottery thwart and other tools also play an important role in the production, while pottery storage can make grain and water easy to store. Therefore, pottery soon became a necessity for human life and production, especially for people who settled down to engage in agricultural production, but also inseparable from pottery.
3. The Rise of Metallurgical Chemistry
In the late Neolithic period, humans began to use metal instead of stone to make tools. The most used was red copper. But this natural resource was after all limited, so the metallurgy of smelting metals from ores arose. The first smelting was copper ore, and around 3800 BC, Iran began to mix copper ore (malachite) with charcoal and heat it together to obtain metallic copper. Pure copper had a soft texture and the tools and weapons made from it were not of good enough quality. Improvements were made on this basis, and bronze emerged. Between 3000 and 2500 B.C., in addition to the smelting of copper, two other metals, tin (xī) and lead (qiān), were refined. By mixing tin with pure copper, the melting point of copper was lowered to about 800°C, which made casting easier. The alloy of copper and tin is called bronze (sometimes also containing lead), and it is hard enough for making production tools. Weapons made of bronze were hard and sharp, and tools of production made of bronze were far better than red copper, and bronze coins cast in bronze also appeared. China has had great achievements in casting bronze, such as the "Simuwu" tripod in the early Yin Dynasty. It is a ceremonial vessel and is the largest excavated bronze vessel in the world. Another example is the chimes of the Warring States period, which is a great creation in music in ancient times. Therefore, the emergence of bronzes promoted the development of agriculture, weaponry, finance, art and other aspects of the time, and pushed social civilization one step forward. The earliest countries in the world to refine and use iron were China, Egypt and India. In China, pig iron for casting was refined in the late Spring and Autumn Period (6th century B.C.). In the earliest times, charcoal was used to make iron, and the carbon monoxide produced by the incomplete combustion of the charcoal reduced the iron oxide in the iron ore to metallic iron. Iron was widely used to make agricultural tools such as plowshares, iron ■ (a hoeing tool), iron adzes, as well as objects such as iron tripods, and of course, weapons. It was only in the 8th to 7th centuries B.C. that Europe and others entered the Iron Age one after another. As iron is harder than bronze, and the raw materials for iron smelting are far more abundant than copper ore, in the vast majority of places, iron replaced bronze.
4. China's Major Contributions--Gunpowder and Paper Making
Black powder was one of the four great inventions of ancient China. Why call it "black powder"? This is also from the raw materials it used to talk about. The three raw materials of gunpowder are sulfur, nitrate (xiāo) stone and charcoal. Charcoal is black, therefore, made of gunpowder is also black, called black gunpowder. The nature of gunpowder is easy to catch fire, so it can be associated with fire, but how to understand the word "medicine"? It turns out that sulfur and saltpeter were both used in ancient times as medicines for curing diseases, so black gunpowder can be interpreted as a black medicine that catches fire. The invention of gunpowder is related to the alchemy of the Western Han Dynasty in China. The purpose of alchemy is to seek the medicine of immortality, and among the raw materials of alchemy, there are sulfur and saltpeter. The method of alchemy was to put sulfur and saltpeter in an alchemy furnace and refine them with fire for a long time. In the process of alchemy many times, there were fire and explosion phenomenon again and again, after so many tests finally found a way to formulate gunpowder. After the invention of black gunpowder, it was detached from alchemy, and has been used in the military. In ancient times, people used swords and spears to fight battles at close range, and used bows and arrows to fight battles at long range. With black gunpowder, from the Song Dynasty onwards, various new types of weapons appeared, such as gunpowder packs that were fired from bows. There were two types of gunpowder packs, fireballs and tribulus terrestris, in which fire was used to light up the threads of gunpowder and the packs were thrown out to kill and injure the opponent by burning and exploding. Around the 8th century A.D., Chinese alchemy spread to Arabia, and the method of preparing gunpowder was also passed on, and later to Europe. In this way, Chinese gunpowder became the "ancestor" of modern explosives. This is one of the great inventions of China. Paper is a tool for human beings to preserve knowledge and disseminate culture, which is a major contribution of the Chinese nation to human civilization. Before the use of paper made of plant fibers, the main methods of spreading the written word in ancient China were: carving characters on oracle bones (turtle's abdominal armor and cow bones), the so-called oracle bone writing; the number of oracle bones was limited, and later changed to bamboo or wooden slips to carve characters on the slips. However, Confucius wrote the Analects of Confucius used more bamboo slips, the weight of the weight can be imagined; in addition, woven silk silk (bó), can also be used to write, but the mass production of silk is difficult to do. In May 1957, Chinese archaeologists found some beige paper in an ancient tomb at Ba (bà) Bridge in Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province. It was identified that this kind of paper was mainly made of hemp fiber, and its age would not be later than that of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty (156 B.C. to 87 B.C.), which is the earliest plant-fiber paper in the world in existence. When mentioning the invention of paper, people will think of Cai Lun. He was the middle chamberlain at the time of Emperor He of the Han Dynasty. He saw that the bamboo slips used for writing at that time were too bulky, so he summarized the experience of paper-making of his predecessors, and led the craftsmen to use the bark of trees, hemp, rags, broken fishnets and other raw materials, first cut them up or cut off, put them in water for a long time to soak, and then pounded them to become pulp, then spread them out into thin slices on mats, and then put them in the sun to dry in the sun, and then they were made into paper. It is thin and light, suitable for writing, and very popular. Paper-making is an extremely complex chemical process, which is the product of the wisdom of the vast number of working people. In fact, paper already existed before Cai Lun, so Cai Lun can only be regarded as an improver of the paper-making process.
5. Alchemy and Alchemy
When the feudal society developed to a certain stage, the productive forces have been greatly improved, the ruling class of the material enjoyment of the demand is also more and more high, the emperor and the nobility naturally produced two kinds of luxury: the first is the hope that the master of the more wealth, for their enjoyment; second, when they have a huge wealth, they always want to enjoy forever! The second was that when they had great wealth, they always wished to enjoy it forever. Thus, the wish for immortality arose. For example, after Qin Shi Huang unified China, he could not wait to seek the elixir of immortality. Not only did he let Xu Fu and others go out to the sea to look for it, but he also summoned a large group of fangshi (alchemists) to make the elixir of immortality - the elixir of immortality - for him day and night. The alchemists wanted to turn stone into gold (i.e., make gold and silver by artificial means). They believed that base metals like copper, lead, tin, and iron could be transformed into precious metals like gold and silver by some means. Like the Greek alchemists melted copper, lead, tin, and iron into an alloy, and then put it into a solution of calcium polysulfide and soaked it. Thus, on the surface of the alloy will form a layer of tin sulfide, its color resembles gold (now, the golden yellow tin sulfide is called gold dust, can be used as gold paint for ancient buildings, etc.). This, the alchemist subjectively believe that "gold" has been refined. In fact, this only from the surface of the color and not from the essence to determine the material changes in the method, is self-deception. They never achieved the goal of "turning stone into gold". Although the purpose of the pious alchemists and goldsmiths was not achieved, their hard labor was not entirely in vain. They spent years and years in the poisonous gas, soot shrouded in the simple "chemical laboratory", should be said to be the first dedicated to explore the mysteries of chemical science "chemists". They accumulated a wealth of experience and lessons of failure for the establishment of the discipline of chemistry, and even summarized some of the laws of chemical reactions. For example, the Chinese alchemist Ge Hong from the practice of alchemy put forward: "Dan sand (mercuric sulfide) burned into mercury, cumulative change (the sulfur and mercury two together) and also into (cross into) Dan sand." This is a summary of the law of chemical change, that is, "substances can be transformed into each other by artificial means." Alchemists and alchemists night and day in these most primitive chemical experiments, must need a large number of experimental equipment, so they invented the distillation apparatus, melting furnace, heating pot, beaker and filtration device. They also made many chemicals, useful alloys or cures for diseases according to the needs of the time, many of which are acids, bases and salts commonly used today. They also coined many technical terms and wrote many books in order to document the methods and passages of their experiments. It was these theories, chemical experimental methods, chemical instruments, and alchemy and alchemy writings that pioneered the science of chemistry. From these historical facts can be seen, alchemists and alchemists on the rise and development of chemistry is meritorious, future generations should not be because of their "pursuit of immortality and turn gold into stone" and mock them, they should be honored as a pioneer in the development of chemical science. Therefore, in the English language chemist (chemist) and alchemist (alchemist) two terms are very similar, its true meaning is "chemistry from alchemy".
Second, the creation of modern chemical theory -- to explore the structure of matter
The world is made of matter, but what is matter made of? The earliest attempt to answer this question was China's late Shang Dynasty, Xibeichang (about 1140 BC), who argued that "Yi has Taiji, Yi born two meters, two meters born four elephants, four elephants born eight trigrams." The Yin-Yang Bagua was used to explain the composition of matter. About 1400 B.C., Western natural philosophy put forward the idea of the structure of matter. Greek Therese that water is the mother of all things; Heilacritus that all things are generated by fire; Aristotle in the book "occurrence and annihilation" of the material structure of the argument to the four "original nature" as the nature of the most primitive nature, they are hot, cold, dry, wet, and combine them in pairs, the formation of four kinds of By combining them in pairs, four "elements" were formed, namely, fire, air, water and earth, which then constituted various substances. All these arguments above fail to touch the essence of the structure of matter. In the history of the development of chemistry, it was Boyle of England who first gave a clear definition of the elements. He pointed out: "An element is fundamental in the constitution of matter, and it can be combined with other elements to form compounds. But if after an element has been separated from a compound, it can no longer be broken down into anything simpler than it is." Boyle also advocated that chemistry should not be viewed simply as an empirical skill for engaging in processes such as making metals, drugs, etc., but that it should be viewed as a science. Thus, Boyle is credited with establishing chemistry as a science. Man's understanding of the structure of matter is never-ending. Matter is composed of elements, so what are the elements composed of? 1803, the British chemist Dalton founded the doctrine of atoms to further answer this question. There are three main contents of the atomic doctrine: 1. all elements are composed of particles that cannot be divided and destroyed, and such particles are called atoms; 2. the nature and quality of atoms of the same element are the same, and the nature and quality of atoms of different elements are different; and 3. a certain number of compounds will be formed after the combination of two different elements. The atomic theory successfully explained many chemical phenomena. Subsequently, the Italian chemist Aphogadro proposed the molecular theory in 1811, which further supplemented and developed Dalton's atomic theory. He argued that many substances often existed not in the form of atoms but of molecules, e.g. oxygen is an oxygen molecule composed of two oxygen atoms, and that compounds are practically all molecules. Since then, chemistry has moved from the macroscopic to the microscopic level, allowing the study of chemistry to be based on the atomic and molecular levels.
Three, the rise of modern chemistry
Toward the end of the 19th century, there were three major discoveries in physics, namely, X-rays, radioactivity, and electrons. These new discoveries violently impacted Dalton's concept of the indivisibility of the atom, thus opening the door to the internal structure of the atom and the nucleus, exposing the deeper mysteries of the microscopic world. After the introduction of thermodynamics and other theories of physics into chemistry, the use of chemical equilibrium and the concept of reaction rate, you can judge the direction and conditions of the transformation of substances in a chemical reaction, and thus began to establish physical chemistry, chemistry from the theory to a new level. The theory of chemical bonding (the bonding force between atoms in a molecule), developed on the basis of the establishment of quantum mechanics, has enabled mankind to further understand the relationship between molecular structure and properties, and has greatly facilitated the connection between chemistry and materials science, providing a theoretical basis for the development of materials science. The relationship between chemistry and society has also become increasingly close. Chemists use the viewpoint of chemistry to observe and think about social problems, and use the knowledge of chemistry to analyze and solve social problems, such as the energy crisis, food problems, environmental pollution and so on. The intersection and penetration of chemistry and other disciplines have given rise to many fringe disciplines, such as biochemistry, geochemistry, cosmochemistry, marine chemistry, atmospheric chemistry, etc., which have led to the rapid development of science and technology in biology, electronics, spaceflight, laser, geology, and oceanography. Chemistry has also provided countless material guarantees for human beings' clothing, food, housing and transportation, and has made its due contribution to the improvement of people's lives and the health of human beings. Modernization of the rise of chemistry from inorganic chemistry and organic chemistry on the basis of the development of multiple branches of science, began to establish inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, physical chemistry and polymer chemistry as a branch of the discipline of chemistry. Chemists, the "molecular architects" will use the hands of the fickle, for all mankind to create today's building, tomorrow's ring.
6, safety explosives for the benefit of mankind -- Nobel invented safety explosives
"Rumble ..." A loud bang, landslide, earth and stone flying burst. This is a scene we can often see from the screen and the silver screen. Today, the powerful explosives are engaged in mining, road construction and other large-scale engineering and construction of essential trailblazers; but at the time, how did mankind find and tame the power but also violent temper "friends"? It's a long story. As we all know, the black rocket is one of the four great inventions of ancient China. Around the 13th to 14th century AD, through the Arab countries in Central Asia to the European countries, Europeans learned to use gunpowder to promote, not only made with gunpowder fired guns, cannons, but also used to develop production. To the 17th century, with the deepening of the Industrial Revolution, many countries urgently require the development of the mining industry, accelerate the speed of extraction, the need for more powerful explosives, and the traditional black gunpowder does not burn sufficiently, the explosive force is not strong, so the search for powerful new explosives has become a major problem of the imminent. 1847, the Italians Sobrero invented a named nitroglycerine explosive which is much stronger than the black powder. Black powder is much larger. But it exploded very easily and was dangerous to manufacture, store and transport. People had no way of controlling it, so it was difficult to put it to practical use. In order to tame this violent "wild horse", many people have made a lot of efforts, but have not succeeded; and finally subdued and harnessed this "wild horse", to create a highly effective and safe explosives is a Swedish warrior --- chemist Alfredo.
Nobel, a Swedish warrior - chemist Alfred Nobel.
Nobel's father is a mechanic, not highly educated, but very much like chemical experiments, a free time to develop explosives. Under the influence of his father, young Nobel was also keen to improve the research of explosives. But his parents did not approve of it, because it was too dangerous to work on explosives. His father wanted him to be an honest mechanic. But Nobel was convinced that improving explosives would create great wealth for mankind. His parents were touched by his strong will to pursue his work and had to acquiesce. From then on, father and son stood in the same trench, in order to overcome the scientific difficulties and struggle side by side. 1862 early, Nobel began to study the use of nitroglycerin to make controlled high explosives. He thought: nitroglycerin is liquid, not good control, if it is mixed with solid rest of the black gunpowder, not easy to store, control? He swabbed with 10% of nitroglycerin added to the black gunpowder, made of mixed explosives explosive power is indeed greatly enhanced, but he soon found that the explosives can not be stored for a long time, placed a few hours later, the nitroglycerin is absorbed by the pores of the gunpowder, the burning speed and then slowed down, the explosive power is greatly weakened, and therefore has no practical value.
In order to develop a controlled high-performance explosives, Nobel day and night to carry out bold tests and careful observation. In the past, people detonated black powder by lighting a fuse, but this method could not detonate nitroglycerin. Nitroglycerin is not easy to explode according to human requirements, yet it is easy to explode on its own. What a bratty (jiéà o) untamed fellow!
In the early summer of 1862, Nobel designed a detonation of nitroglycerin important sudden test: put a small glass tube nitroglycerin into a metal tube filled with black gunpowder, installed fuse will be tightly plugged after the mouth of the metal tube; ignite the fuse, the metal tube thrown into a deep ditch. In a flash, a boom, a violent explosion, which indicates that the nitroglycerin inside has completely exploded. From this, Nobel realized: the explosion of a small amount of black powder in a sealed container can cause a complete explosion of nitroglycerin separated.
The next fall, Nobel established his first laboratory in Stockholm's Helen Poe, specializing in nitroglycerin research and manufacturing. At first, he used black gunpowder as a detonator, the effect is not very satisfactory, later he changed to mercury fulminate made of detonator (now called detonator), successfully detonated nitroglycerin. 1864 he obtained a patent for this invention. He finally invented a practical nitroglycerine explosive.
The initial success of the joy has not yet passed, followed by a heavy blow. September 3, 1864, in order to further improve the performance of the detonator, the manufacture of more efficient explosives, they carry out a new test. Only a loud boom was heard, the laboratory was sent up into the sky and a big crater was blown out of the ground. When people ran to rescue Nobel from the rubble, Nobel, who was covered in blood, kept saying with his mouth full, "The test was a success, my test was a success!" Yes, the power of the new explosives was enormous, however, the losses were heavy: his laboratory was completely destroyed, Nobel's brother Emi was killed, his father was seriously injured and disabled, his brother and himself were also injured. After the accident, the surrounding neighbors were in a great panic, and the authorities forbade them to engage in explosives production or experimentation within the city. As a result, Noble had to move his equipment to a flat-bottomed boat in Lake Mara, three kilometers away. But this did not shake Nobel's determination to make new explosives. After much difficulty, he finally received government approval to build the world's first nitroglycerine factory in March 1865 in Winterwegen.
Nobel produced explosives that were very popular with the mining industry. In addition to Sweden, it was patented in England, France, Germany and the United States. However, the performance of the new explosives is still not stable enough, in the transportation of accidents often occur: a train in the United States, on the way due to bumps and explosives caused by the explosion, turned into a pile of scrap metal; "Europa" ship, in the Atlantic Ocean encountered gusty winds, the hull of the ship tilted, resulting in nitroglycerin explosion, the ship sank and people died. A series of accidents made people suspicious of nitroglycerin, and some countries even ordered an embargo. In the face of this difficult situation, many people advised Nobel not to engage in dangerous explosives test, but Nobel did not stop until the goal, he considered the explosive force without weakening at the same time must make nitroglycerin explosives become very safe.
Nobel did a series of tests, hoping to use some porous material, such as charcoal powder, sawdust, cement and other adsorption of nitroglycerin to reduce the risk of explosion, but the results are not satisfactory. Once a transport vehicle on a nitroglycerin tank accidentally broke, nitroglycerin flowed out and next to the diatomaceous earth as an anti-vibration filler mixed together, but no accident. This gave Nobel a great revelation, after repeated tests, finally made a diatomaceous earth to absorb three parts of nitroglycerin solid explosives. This kind of explosives whether transportation or use are very safe, this is the Nobel safety explosives. In order to eliminate people's doubts about the safety of explosives, July 14, 1867, Nobel did a public comparison experiment. He put a box of safety explosives on a pile of lit firewood is, the result of explosives did not blow up; and then a box of safety explosives from the 20-meter-high cliffs, the results are still not fried; and finally in the cave, iron barrels loaded with safety explosives, detonated by detonator, all successfully exploded! The "wild horse" finally put on the cage, explosives are no longer daunting.
Nobel continued to improve his explosives. He put a fire cotton (low nitrogen nitrocellulose) dissolved in nine nitroglycerin, to get a stronger explosive gel - fried glue, 1887, he added a small amount of camphor to nitroglycerin and fire cotton fried glue, invented a strong explosive force and less smoke smokeless gunpowder. Until today, the gunpowder commonly used in military production, still belongs to this type. In the rumbling sound of explosions, Nobel's career developed rapidly. His factories throughout Europe and the United States, the sales of new explosives skyrocketed. His invention greatly contributed to the construction of highways and iron, and helped tunneling and mining; however, his explosives also deepened the disaster and suffering of the war, which made him very painful. In order to benefit mankind, he wrote a famous will in Paris on November 29, 1895, founding the Institute of Science with a portion of the huge fortune he had accumulated during his life, and using most of the huge fortune as a fund divided into five prizes for physics, chemistry, physiology (or medicine), literature, and the cause of peace in order to encourage those who had made the most contributions to mankind.
7. A New Era in the Alkali Industry--Hou Deping's Invention of Combined Alkali Production
In the chemical industry, soda ash is an important chemical raw material, and its chemical name is also called "sodium carbonate", which is a kind of white powder. Don't look down on it, its use can be big it! Manufacturing soap, glass, paper with it; spinning and weaving with it; iron and steelmaking process is also indispensable. It can also make a lot of chemical products with it! It was born in the chemical plant, is produced by the combined alkali production method. This method was pioneered by the Chinese chemical industry pioneer Hou Deping, so it is also called "Hou's alkali production method". Under what circumstances did Hou Debang study the alkali production method and how did he create the Hou's alkali production method? Things have to start from the 17th century, when people in the production of glass, paper, soap, etc. already know to use soda ash, but then the soda ash is extracted from wood ash and salt water, people do not know that it can be produced from the factory. Later, a French physician Lu Bran spent 4 years, in 1791, the first creation of a soda ash manufacturing method, from the soda ash can be a steady stream of people in the factory to produce, to meet the needs of industrial production at that time. Unfortunately, this method is not perfect, there are many shortcomings, such as high temperature in the production process, workers' labor intensity is very high, a lot of coal, the quality of products is not high, so many people want to improve it. 1862, there is a Belgian chemist called Sulvey, he proposed a salt, limestone, ammonia as the main raw material of the alkali method, which is called " ammonia-alkali method" or " ammonia-alkali method" or " ammonia-alkali method". This method is called "ammonia-alkali method" or "Sulvi alkali production method". This method soon replaced the Lubran method because of its high yield, high quality, low cost, and continuous production. However, the method was strictly controlled by the manufacturers, so that it could not be leaked out to others, and at the beginning of the 20th century, China also needed soda ash for its industrial production, but it could not produce it itself and had to rely on imports. During the First World War, the production of soda ash was greatly reduced, coupled with the obstruction of transportation, a British company manufacturing soda ash took the opportunity to raise the price of soda ash, and even did not supply it to China, resulting in the closure of Chinese factories using soda ash as raw material. At that time, there was a Chinese student Hou Debeng who studied in the United States, he studied very hard, with excellent results, he studied chemical engineering in the United States for 8 years, and obtained a doctoral degree in 1921, when he heard that the foreign capitalists were so stuck in the neck of the Chinese people, he swore to return to his country after his studies, to serve his motherland with the knowledge he had learned, and to revitalize the national industry of China. In October 1921, Hou Debeng returned to China and became the chief engineer of Yongli Alkali Company, with the task of creating the first alkali factory in China. At that time, in order to produce alkali, it could only be produced according to the Sulvi alkali production method.
The principle is very simple, but it is difficult to make it. Due to the technology blockade, Hou Deping could only rely on his own continuous research, testing and figuring out. After a long time of hard work, finally designed a good process, installed the equipment, and then began to test the birth of not. Who knows the beginning of the difficulties encountered. One day, not long after the test run, the high steam ammonia tower suddenly shaking work is very strong, and issued a loud noise everyone was afraid of, Hou Debang saw immediately called for a stop. A check, it turned out that all the pipes are blocked by white sediment. How to do? At first, he took a big brazier to poke, tired and sweaty, but also to no avail. Later, he came up with the method of adding dry soda, so that the sediment slowly fell down, and finally turned to safety. There were many, many other faults like this, and each time he eliminated them one by one. After several years of hard work, on August 13, 1924, China's first alkali plant was officially put into production. The workers came to the workshop early that day, wanting to witness the birth of China's first batch of soda ash. A few hours later, I don't know who shouted, "It's coming out!" Everyone's eyes looked toward the mouth of the soda ash. Huh? How come out is red and white soda? It should be snow-white! Everyone's heart was cold. At this time Hou Debang carefully checked the equipment, the original soda ash out of the rust encountered, so that the product turned red. The reason was found out, everyone was relieved, and later improved the equipment, finally made a pure white product. Looking at the white soda ash, Hou Debang smiled, he smiled so comfortably, a few years of hard work is not in vain, he finally figured out the mystery of Sulvi alkali method, and realized his vow to serve the motherland.
In 1937, the Japanese imperialists launched a war of aggression against China, and they took a fancy to the ammonium sulfate plant in Nanjing, for which they wanted to buy Hou Deping, but they were severely rejected by Hou Deping. In order not to make the factory suffered damage, he decided to move the factory to Sichuan, a new Yongli Chuanxi Chemical Factory. The main raw material for making alkali is table basin, which is sodium chloride, and the salt in Sichuan is well salt, which has to be hoisted out in buckets by bamboo tubes from the bottom of a very deep and deep well. Due to the diluted concentration, it also has to be concentrated to become raw material, so that the cost of salt is high. In addition, the fatal drawback of Sulvey's alkali method is that the utilization rate of salt is not high, that is to say, 30% of the salt will be wasted, so the cost is even higher, so Hou Debang decided not to use Sulvey's alkali method, but to open up a new way. He first analyzed the shortcomings of the Sulvi alkali method, found that the main raw materials in each half of the score did not take advantage of the salt in the sodium and lime in the carbonate, the combination of the two to generate the soda ash. The other half of the salt in the chlorine and lime in the calcium combined to produce calcium chloride, this product are not utilized. So how can we turn the other half of the ingredients into treasure? He thought and thought and devised many plans, but they were all rejected. Then he finally thought, can the Sulvi alkali production and ammonia synthesis method combined, that is to say, the production of alkali ammonia and carbon dioxide directly from the ammonia plant to provide the ammonium chloride in the filtrate into the brine, so that it precipitated out. This ammonium chloride can be used as a chemical raw material, but also as a fertilizer, which can greatly improve the utilization rate of salt, but also save a lot of equipment, such as lime kilns, ash barrels, ammonia evaporation tower. Idea has, whether success depends on practice. So the ground and lead the technical staff, did the experiment. l times, 2 times, 10 times, 100 times.... Has been carried out more than 500 times, but also analyzed more than 2000 samples, only to make the test successful, so that the idea has become a reality.
This new method of alkali production was named "joint alkali production method", which makes the utilization rate of salt from the original 70% to 96%. In addition, the waste of calcium chloride, which pollutes the environment, becomes a useful fertilizer for crops - ammonium chloride, and also reduces 1/3 of the equipment, so it is superior to the Sulvi alkali method, thus creating a new era of the world's alkali industry.