my magic industry

Chapter 219 Finished Glass
According to the knowledge in Xia Lin's memory, these two kinds of crucibles can withstand quite high temperatures, and glass is usually fired in crucibles, so they are perfect for this occasion.

After the workers completed the transformation of the five kilns, four of them were equipped with graded regenerators, the other was transformed into an annealing kiln, and the pig iron molds and various tools for making glassware were also prepared. Xia Lin He led four groups of R&D personnel and began to formally fire the glass.

In his memory, there is a complete set of glass firing process from the forum, including material selection, proportioning, crushing, firing, observing the heat, removing bubbles, removing color, mold making, and blowing. All links are complete and complete. .

The first is the selection of materials. The diatomite, caustic soda, and lime purified by the purification technique will be mixed according to the ratio in his memory. Xia Lin transferred a ball mill from the cement factory to crush these raw materials into uniform and fine particles. material.

Attention should be paid to the crushing degree of the raw materials. If the particles are too coarse, the texture of the melted glass paste will be uneven and the quality of the finished product will be greatly reduced; if it is too fine, the reaction of the raw materials will be too violent, resulting in a large number of fine air bubbles in Among the finished products.

Xia Lin crushed the raw materials into pellets with a particle size of about 2-3 mm, and then had them put them into four crucibles. As a comparison, two of the crucibles were silicon crucibles, and the other two were magnesium crucibles.

After the filling is completed and the kiln is ignited, with the rotation of the waterwheel, the bellows will start to agitate continuously, passing the oxygen from the multi-stage air separation chamber through the leather pipe into the regenerator.

The coal burning under the regenerator heats this air, and the negative pressure provided by the towering chimney of the kiln introduces this heated oxygen into the kiln itself, and begins to react with the coal to generate high heat.

Through the narrow observation hole, Xia Lin observed that the raw materials in the crucible showed signs of melting, but inside the kiln, whose color was close to blazing yellow, Xia Lin could not see clearly whether there were bubbles in the raw materials.

The two most critical basic quality factors for glass are air bubbles and color. Complex air bubbles will damage the strength and aesthetics of glass, and color will affect the use of glass.

However, Xia Lin has no good way to do this. He can only make up his mind to let people continue to heat the molten material step by step according to the predetermined steps. According to his memory, continuous heating of the glass molten material can help the bottom of the molten material The small air bubbles in the air converge into large air bubbles, which carry more air bubbles with them on the way up.

But this method also has limitations, that is, heating the glass paste for too long will cause the alkaline components in it to react and volatilize, and then the viscosity will increase, which will lead to the generation of air bubbles instead, so he has to estimate the glass paste according to his intuition the heat.

After about six hours, Xia Lin asked people to reduce the fire and opened the furnace door. Unexpected things happened to the two silicon crucibles in the four kilns. In the case of softening and deformation, the glass slurry contained in it also leaked out, forming a red streamline in the kiln.

"Does it mean that the silicon crucible cannot withstand the high temperature of 1600 degrees Celsius?"

Xia Lin asked his assistant to note down this phenomenon. Fortunately, the magnesium crucibles in the other two kilns did not have this problem, and the glass slurry inside was well filled like a calm lake.

After fully opening the furnace door, Xia Lin sent someone to fetch a few blowpipes specially made by the steel processing factory. This kind of blowpipe is actually a one-meter-long seamless steel pipe with a slightly curved pick surface on one end, and a It is equipped with a thick wooden handle to prevent burns.

Under the amazed eyes of the assistants and employees beside him, Xia Lin tried to use the blowpipe to pick up a ball of glass paste from the crucible, and then rolled it on the polished smooth iron plate beside, letting the ball of glass The shape of the pulp is more uniform and round.

The one-meter-long blowpipe cannot completely insulate the heat brought by the glass slurry. Just holding Xia Lin in his hand feels like being warmed on the stove. Blowing on the blowpipe.

Xia Lin's physical fitness is quite good, and his lung capacity is also good. As he blows air, the ball of glass slurry gradually expands, and the temperature also rapidly loses. The color gradually changes from red to yellow, and then It turns orange-red and eventually turns into a pale green.

The employees around were amazed by this miraculous process, but Xia Lin was very tired. The main reason was that the blowpipe was too short, and the glass paste was like a ball of fire burning continuously in front of him. Roast yourself.

As soon as it blew down, Xia Lin felt that his hair was about to be scorched, and the wooden handle he held in both hands felt quite hot, so he had to cast a frost spell to lower the temperature around him.

"That's about it, go get the mold!"

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Xia Lin asked someone to bring a cast iron mold with several layers of newspaper inside. After putting the glass slurry into the mold, the newspaper suddenly burned, and Xia Lin used the fire produced by the burning to With the help of the lubrication of the air layer, the almost formed glass vessel was turned while blowing, and finally a strange cylindrical vessel with a flat bottom and an oval top was obtained.

Cut off the irregular part of the upper half of this vessel with a sawing machine, Xia Lin finally got her first glass vessel in this world - an ordinary flat-bottomed beaker.

"It's really a beautiful crystal cup. If you just look at this cup, you can't imagine that it is actually made of a pile of sand and stones!"

Wheeler, the director of the caustic soda plant, watched for a long time, and finally saw the finished glass. Looking at the crystal clear glass beaker, Wheeler exclaimed, and the employees on the side were also amazed. I am full of admiration for the magical magic of crystal.

"This is a glass, not a crystal cup, and it's not good enough just for this quality!"

However, Xia Lin shook his head rather dissatisfied. There are still quite a few fine air bubbles inside the glass beaker that have not been eliminated. At the same time, the color is not completely transparent, but has a little light green, and the texture is not particularly special. Uniform, thick bottom and thin wall, if it is used for experiments, it will break after a short time.

The problem of color is easy to solve. The light green should be the color of ferrous ions. Only need to add an oxidant to turn it into a light yellow. When the ion concentration is not high, the light yellow will not be particularly conspicuous. This glass The basic requirements of transparency have been met.

As for the bubbles, there is no problem. Xia Lin quickly thought of the clarifying agent mentioned in the glass formula on the forum, that is, white arsenic and sodium nitrate. Mixing these two agents can remove most of the bubbles generated in the glass. Bubbles, and then add a stirring process, you should be able to get a clear glass paste.

It's just that white arsenic is toxic and will sublimate into a gaseous state under heating conditions. Xia Lin has to consider the safety of the workers.

However, Xia Lin has no good solution to the problem of texture. The quality of blown glassware has a lot to do with the skill level of the blowers, and a skilled worker is obviously not so easy to train.

After thinking about it, Xia Lin could only record the blowing process and standardize the blowing process through these process data to obtain higher quality glassware as much as possible.

Asking the assistant to memorize a lot of bits and pieces, Xia Lin looked at the glass slurry in the two kilns, and selected a few employees to let them try the feeling of blowing glass.

I put the shoddy beaker in the annealing kiln aside for slow annealing to enhance the mechanical properties of the glassware.

(End of this chapter)