Siheyuan: I eat melons while doing scientific research

Chapter 1437 Top Boss (4k)

Gao Zhendong's words left the engineer surnamed Pan from the Applied Chemistry Department somewhat dumbfounded.

He knew about PAN, after all, carbon fiber was definitely cutting-edge technology in the 60s, and he naturally had some understanding of the polyacrylonitrile route for manufacturing carbon fiber. Even though he wasn't in that field, he couldn't help but pay attention to related developments.

However, to his astonishment, Gao Zhendong had contacted the wrong person.

“Committee Member Gao, there are people in China doing related research on PAN-based carbon fiber, mainly in the Northeast, and it’s mostly theoretical research.”

Gao Zhendong was taken aback. He really didn't know this. After all, carbon fiber was something that was far removed from his profession in his previous life, and he didn't know the detailed history of it.

"Carbon Research Institute?" Hmm, could it be that the one I initially wanted to find was actually the right one?

"No, it's an organization under the chemical industry."

Gao Zhendong nodded, not dwelling on it much, deciding to go with the flow and not caring.

Although he didn't know the specific history, Gao Zhendong knew that if things had continued along the original path, their first pilot production line would not have appeared for another 9 years, and the first commercially produced carbon fiber filament would not have appeared for another 11 years.

can not wait anymore.

Putting everything else aside, even those legendary air force veterans who can supposedly catch anything but fish can't wait that long, can they?

Perhaps other comrades are making faster progress now, but Gao Zhendong believes that no matter who it is, they can't be as fast as he is.

Gao Zhendong rarely refers to other people's progress. No matter how fast he is in the direction he chooses, he is definitely not as fast as me, after all, he is cheating.

He laughed: "Never mind, it's necessary to have multiple avenues, to avoid putting all your eggs in one basket. Engineer Pan, you're familiar with polyacrylonitrile, right?"

"Familiar!" Engineer Pan realized something and became excited.

"Being familiar with it is fine. What? You're not interested in PAN producing carbon fiber?" Gao Zhendong laughed.

"Yes! Yes!" Engineer Pan said hurriedly, "That's perfect!"

Who is this person in front of him? Although he doesn't know much about him and he is very mysterious, he can roughly guess from the bits and pieces revealed by the institute and department. What's more, this person also has the title of scientific committee member. Although it seems that his major is not chemistry, just ask yourself if he has it.

Moreover, he was quite certain that the committee member in front of him, who was even younger than him, had no difficulty whatsoever in mobilizing manpower and funds.

What's even more remarkable is that, according to his comrades who know him well, what makes them so great is not providing manpower, funds, equipment, or resources, but their real strength lies in providing technology!
This last point is the most crucial.

In the words of other comrades: "If you can get involved in his project, you can say that the project is already more than 80% successful. Of course, you can't be complacent. The success rate is very good, but you'll have to do the specific work yourself. He doesn't interfere much with the implementation process."

The second half of that sentence might not sound like a good thing, but those in the know understand what it means. That's exactly the feeling they're after! Otherwise, how can you get enough training?

"That's good. Let's try to make this happen." Gao Zhendong's smile was incredibly warm and friendly to Engineer Pan.

"Committee Member Gao, please assign the tasks!"

Gao Zhendong thought for a moment: "You're familiar with polyacrylonitrile, but do you know anything about carbon fiber?" To say he was familiar with carbon fiber was an understatement. In fact, you couldn't name many people across the country who could say they were "familiar" with it.

"To be honest, I don't know much about this. It's a bit new," said Engineer Pan.

Gao Zhendong laughed. In a broad sense, carbon fiber isn't really that new. The filament in the earliest light bulbs could barely be considered a type of carbon fiber, but that's a rather broad definition.

“Actually, there are at least four ways to obtain carbon fiber,” Gao Zhendong said.

Upon hearing this, Engineer Pan thought, "That's a sure thing!"
Those who can find four methods are probably going to go further than other comrades.
“However, the first three types don’t yield usable carbon fiber bundles, so we won’t discuss them…” Gao Zhendong’s words changed quickly; he wouldn’t talk about the useless ones.

But Engineer Pan was not happy. "No way! I'm here to learn. I'll learn as much as I can. Short cotton linters aren't necessarily useless. Just like short cotton linters are the best for producing nitrocellulose. Long cotton linters are not as good as short cotton linters."

"No, no, Committee Member Gao, please introduce it to me. I don't know anything about it. I want to learn more, even if it's a useless method, I can still learn by analogy," Engineer Pan said hurriedly.

His knowledge of carbon fiber was limited to the fact that PAN could manufacture carbon fiber and a few published papers; he knew nothing else.

Gao Zhendong was taken aback. "Hey, you know what, this guy is quite eager to learn."

"Okay, let's discuss this properly. The first method is pyrolysis, using hydrocarbons or carbon monoxide..."

Gao Zhendong carefully explained the first three methods one by one. Although he didn't go very deep, he was able to help Engineer Pan understand the general meaning.

Engineer Pan listened and nodded. "Now I understand," he said. "After all, many of these methods are actually quite mature, but the results haven't been very good." He hadn't originally connected these methods with carbon fiber, but after what Committee Member Gao said, it all became clear.

"...This third method can produce high-strength graphite single crystals, but the length is very short. Under current conditions, the best result is only about 1 centimeter in length, which is far from sufficient..."

Carbon fiber is indeed like cotton, linen, and silk; it needs to be woven into fabric. If the fibers are too short, it simply cannot be woven.

"Therefore, the most feasible method for us now is still the fourth one—using long organic fiber filaments to carbonize and obtain carbon fibers," Gao Zhendong concluded.

Pan felt as if he had transformed from a complete novice to an expert in carbon fiber within ten minutes. Committee Member Gao was not only knowledgeable but also a good lecturer who made his lectures easy to understand.

Of course, he knew this was an illusion. How to make organic fiber filaments obediently carbonize was a matter of debate. In fact, those who had already begun their research had certainly already moved beyond this initial knowledge and into specific research.

"So, polyacrylonitrile is the best choice?"

"Yes, actually, from the perspective of raw yarn, there are many things that can become raw yarn, such as man-made fibers, polypropylene, polyvinyl alcohol, pitch fibers, heat-resistant organic polymer fibers with aromatic heterocyclic compounds, etc., all of which are options..."

Raw silk is organic fiber that has not been carbonized.

These words shocked Pan Gong. This was not a matter that could be easily concluded. The depth of Gao's research in this area was only beginning to show at this moment.

He kept writing, quickly jotting down every word he heard. Perhaps these raw materials might not be usable now for various reasons, but with technological advancements, they might become useful. These few dozen words could save a lot of preliminary research work, which is undeniably important.

Although Commissioner Gao's demeanor and tone seemed casual, Engineer Pan was not stupid. As a senior chemical researcher, he knew very well what was precious.

"Committee Member Gao, there's something I don't quite understand. Aren't all of these things man-made? Why is there a separate section for man-made fiber? Aren't these all man-made fibers?"

Gao Zhendong chuckled. To be honest, Engineer Pan asked a very good question, which showed that his mind was working at high speed, listening and thinking at the same time.

"The artificial fibers mentioned here are actually relative to natural fibers. To be precise, the artificial fibers mentioned here refer to regenerated cellulose." In the process of technological development, it is very common to use a general term to refer to a specific type.

At this point, Gao Zhendong couldn't help but laugh.

Engineer Pan didn't know what he was laughing at; he was just taking notes seriously.

In reality, Gao Zhendong was laughing at the northern polar bears, who were following the path of artificial fibers. However, around the early 80s, they found that this path was not easy and eventually returned to the path of PAN.

But that's all in the future; the most important thing now is the choice we make.

"...However, for now, the most suitable and convenient option is still polyacrylonitrile..." Gao Zhendong actually had more than one type of carbon fiber process introduction, but the most complete one was for polyacrylonitrile. After all, PAN has been developed for so many years and is the most mature, the most researched, and the most widely used.

Gao Zhendong wasn't stubborn; he used whatever was readily available. PAN had dominated carbon fiber production throughout the 20th century, with a very wide product line covering everything from low to high end. It must have had strong advantages and excellent technological adaptability. Only a fool would try to find another way.

Engineer Pan breathed a sigh of relief. That's good, that's good. He's familiar with polyacrylonitrile.

But what happened next made him feel like he wasn't so familiar with polyacrylonitrile anymore.

Gao Zhendong took out a sheet of A16 paper and placed it in front of Engineer Pan.

"This is a process flow I devised based on research progress abroad and my own ideas..."

The 16K paper seemed a bit small because the words on it were handwritten and had been corrected. It was clear that Committee Member Gao was revising as he thought, and with so much content, the paper naturally appeared small.

This look made his scalp tingle; it was so complicated!

From raw materials to finished products, there are more than 20 steps in total. Most importantly, many of these steps can be expanded into a flowchart of roughly the same size.

For example, the first step, "copolymerization and amination (high relative molecular mass)," is just a simple dozen or so words, but it can be expanded into a whole bunch of amazing articles.

He even knew about copolymerization and understood the concept of high relative molecular mass, but he had no idea what ammoniation represented.

No, Committee Member Gao has already thought that far ahead?
In fact, the foundation of PAN technology was laid in 63, and some of it was even publicly published. However, it wasn't until the early 21st century that we were barely on the right track, and there's a reason for that.

This thing is incredibly complicated!
If there hadn't been a ready-made book to copy, Gao Zhendong wouldn't have been interested at all.

Upon seeing Pan Gong's expression, Gao Zhendong realized he had intimidated him. He was certain that, not only in the whole country, but even in the world, no one could produce such a picture. Because this picture came from the 21st century, and it contained many things that were far ahead of their time.

He quickly picked up a pen and circled the word "raw silk" on the process flow diagram, which was roughly in the middle section.

"Don't look at what comes next, that's just wishful thinking. Let's solve this problem first—the raw silk!"

Pan Gong finally calmed down; he realized that the person had indeed been frightened.

Then he quickly found his place.

He pointed to the place where it all began: "Committee Member Gao, I think I should try to solve this problem first, the spinning solution. Firstly, this is my area of ​​expertise, so I am more comfortable with it. Secondly, it is the foundation of everything."

Gao Zhendong laughed. "The positioning is quite accurate."

Once he had chosen his direction, Engineer Pan got into the swing of things very quickly.

"Committee Member Gao, considering structural uniformity and carbon yield, homopolymer PAN should be the best. Why do you need to add other comonomers here to make copolymer PAN?"

Homopolymerization and copolymerization, simply put, the former is the polymerization of a single component, while the latter has some other components added, so it is called "copolymerization".

This is something he didn't understand from the beginning. Theoretically speaking, polymers composed entirely of polyacrylonitrile (AN) are the best, with a consistent and uniform structure, and theoretically, the amount of carbon left after carbonization is the highest.

Adding other comonomers disrupts this structural consistency and also reduces carbon yield.

Gao Zhendong smiled and said, "Theoretically, that's true, but in actual engineering, we can't just consider the theory. In reality, homopolymer PAN releases heat in the subsequent pre-oxidation process, making it prone to fiber breakage. Compared to fiber breakage, uniform structure and carbon yield are less important. Adding copolymers can lower the activation energy of the reaction and alleviate the above problems. Of course, copolymers also have other functions, such as..."

These details are too intricate to be seen on the process diagram, so Gao Zhendong had to explain them one by one.

Pan's head was buzzing at that moment.

Why choose itaconic acid as one of the comonomers? Why add isobutyl acrylate? Why...?

Then, after Gao Zhendong explained everything, I understood. This was to promote the health-promoting effect of the spinning head, and that was to have a similar polymerization rate to the main raw material AN, making it easy to polymerize, with a high polymerization rate, and the spinning solution after polymerization is stable...

He didn't understand most of the knowledge that Gao Zhendong mentioned, but after Gao Zhendong explained it, he would feel "I see" in his heart.

His admiration for Gao Zhendong at that moment was indescribable.

This is not just theoretical research, but a direct approach that starts from theory and delves into practice, addressing potential problems as much as possible during the process design stage to lay the foundation for subsequent processes.

He didn't know if the subsequent processes were reliable, since some of them weren't his forte, but he was at least very confident about the spinning solution step! If he couldn't even get results from this, he should switch careers as soon as possible to avoid losing face.

(End of this chapter)