The top student must be diligent.

Chapter 220 Important Discovery

Chapter 220 Important Discovery
"Current research on first-wall materials is basically centered around the preparation of tungsten metal. After all, tungsten has the highest melting point of all metals, more than 3,000 degrees Celsius. It also has good thermal conductivity, which helps to quickly dissipate heat. If we use boiling water to generate electricity, tungsten metal can indeed help us quickly heat water."

In the materials laboratory of the Plasma Institute, Li Jiangan stood next to Xiao Yi and introduced the current affairs to him.

Xiao Yi nodded slightly.

Since the Plasma Institute studies nuclear fusion, it naturally has a laboratory on materials.

They have also achieved quite in-depth results in the research of first-wall materials, and have cooperative relationships with quite a few material research institutes in China.

Today, they also have a cooperative relationship with the Materials Research Institute of Science Island Laboratory.

At this point, Li Jiangan sighed again: "Of course, this is basically limited by the fact that the periodic table is limited. If there are more metal materials that can exist normally in the middle of the periodic table, maybe we can find a better metal than tungsten?"

Hearing him say this, Xiao Yi couldn't help but laugh.

This is indeed a good idea. Why can't there be other elements between the elements in the periodic table?
But from a scientific point of view, this makes sense. With every additional electron outside the nucleus, the properties of the element will change. Then, in order to balance the extra negative electrons, there will be an additional positively charged proton in the nucleus, which determines the intrinsic properties of the element.

It sounds more and more like there is a sense of design in it.

Is there really a creator of the world?

Every scientist probably has such an idea in his mind, but in the end he would reject it with his own scientific ideas.

"But then again, do you really intend to make the first wall material your first target?"

Li Jiangan asked again at this time.

Xiao Yi nodded: "Yes."

"If the problem of the first wall material is not solved, then how to efficiently extract the energy generated by nuclear fusion will never be solved."

Li Jiangan was silent for a moment.

He knew this sentence was correct.

If heat is not exchanged, the energy of nuclear fusion will be trapped in the nuclear fusion reactor.

For heat exchange to occur, contact is required.

At the level of human civilization, there is absolutely no material in the world that can directly withstand nuclear fusion plasma.

Therefore, the material responsible for exchanging heat can only become a consumable.

Xiao Yi said: "Think about what I said on the day of the induction ceremony."

"What will humans do when the raw materials for making this consumable are completely consumed?"

"Tungsten, for example."

"According to statistics, the world's tungsten reserves are only over 4 million tons. Although it seems a lot, if tungsten becomes the most important first-wall material for nuclear fusion in the future, its consumption will inevitably increase dramatically. By that time, we must consider the possibility of running out of tungsten reserves."

"If humans haven't found a new energy source to replace nuclear fusion before then, all nuclear fusion reactors in the world will have to shut down, and human civilization will regress to our era."

"Think about it again. In 1850, when mankind officially started the Second Industrial Revolution, the world's total population was about 2 billion. Now in 12, the world's total population has directly reached 2024 billion, which is a direct increase of nearly 80 times."

"And if nuclear fusion technology emerges, then in a few hundred years, the global population will most likely experience another surge..."

At this point, Xiao Yi suddenly raised his eyebrows and said, "Of course, considering the general thinking of young people today, whether the population will increase six or seven times is indeed a question."

"However, two or three times shouldn't be a big problem."

Hearing this question, Li Jiangan became interested and asked jokingly, "Aren't you also a young person? What do you think?"

Xiao Yi looked at Academician Li helplessly and said, "Academician Li, please stop caring about my affairs."

"Hey, how can I not care about this? You are now a young comrade in our institute. As an old man, it is reasonable for me to care about the emotional problems of young comrades, right?"

Xiao Yi's eyes suddenly turned cold: "Women will only affect the efficiency of my scientific research."

Li Jiangan burst out laughing.

However, he coughed twice and said, "But no matter what, I think your idea is still too pessimistic. As the saying goes, things will work out when the time comes. When that time comes, humans will always find a way."

He looked at the sun in the sky and said, "For example, a few hundred years from now, our human civilization will have the ability to build a Dyson sphere. Once the Dyson sphere is built, we will be able to share weal and woe with the sun."

"Dyson sphere..."

Xiao Yi thought of the dream within a dream he had that night.

In it, humans have indeed created a Dyson sphere, which can almost completely absorb the energy emitted by the sun. Obviously, compared to this largest energy source, even if humans build more nuclear fusion reactors, they can never compare with natural nuclear fusion reactors like stars.

On this basis, humans can indeed achieve a level of shared destiny with the sun.

However... for a civilization that can create a Dyson sphere, there should be no problem even without the sun, right?
Maybe at that time humans will think that sunlight is the most beautiful scenery in the world, and we must protect the sun and not build Dyson spheres.

Finally, he shook his head and said, "Okay, that's enough time for science fiction. Now let's think carefully about what kind of structure can help us resist the power of the sun."

Xiao Yi waved his hand, said no more, and continued to try on the computer in front of him.

Just now, he had been trying to use modeling on the computer to build a structure that could withstand the impact of high-energy particles.

When we enter the microscopic world, the concept of temperature does not actually exist. Temperature is a macroscopic number, but when reflected in the microscopic world, it is related to the average kinetic energy of matter. Of course, considering the different forms of objects, the relationship between them is also different.

For example, the temperature of the gas, according to the classical kinetic theory of gases, is related to the average translational kinetic energy of the molecules as follows: 3/2kB·T=1/2m[v^2], where kB is the Boltzmann constant, approximately 1.38×10^23 J/K, T is the Kelvin temperature, m is the mass of the gas molecules, and [v^2] is the mean square value of the molecular velocity.

Of course, the form of plasma is similar to that of gas.

Therefore, from the temperature of the plasma, the kinetic energy of its individual particles can be calculated.

In nuclear fusion, the particles of plasma, mainly electrons and ions, as well as neutrons, have kinetic energy equivalent to hundreds of millions of degrees and collide with the atoms of the wall material.

Under such a huge impact, ordinary structural materials obviously cannot withstand it.

Therefore, his current goal is to find an atomic structure that can withstand this impact force.

Metal tungsten is obviously a good choice. With some current alloy technologies, such as tungsten-chromium-titanium alloy, it can theoretically last for more than a month in a nuclear fusion environment.

But just one month is definitely not enough.

So at this time we need to consider what kind of alloy structure can further enhance its radiation resistance.

In addition, tungsten is not without its shortcomings. It becomes brittle at high temperatures, which greatly affects its performance. Therefore, it is also necessary to try to solve this problem during research.

In addition to metallic tungsten, carbon-based composite materials are also an option.

Carbon is a material that exhibits many properties and seems to be able to demonstrate its usefulness in any field.

Carbon-based composite materials have good thermal conductivity and resistance to thermal shock, but they will undergo physical and chemical changes under high-energy neutron irradiation, which also requires further research.

In addition to these two types of materials, there are many other types of materials that scientists have chosen.

For example, low-activation steel, ODS steel, nanostructured materials, etc.

Among them, Xiao Yi prefers steel and carbon-based materials. After all, the reserves of these two in the earth are much higher than tungsten, so there is no need to worry. In particular, the cost is much lower than tungsten.

Moreover, the density of tungsten is much higher. With the same mass, both carbon and steel are much larger in volume than tungsten.

The density of tungsten is approximately 19.35 grams per cubic centimeter, while the density of iron is approximately 7.86 grams per cubic centimeter.

As for carbon, there is no need to say more.

Of course, considering that the abundance of iron in the earth's crust reaches 5%, while the abundance of carbon is only 0.02%, iron has the highest priority.

In this way, Xiao Yi kept trying to build different structures. Of course, there was no need to expect any results in a short period of time.

Faced with such a problem, even he can only try his luck by constantly trying. Of course, in addition to trying simulations on the computer, he is also constantly using experiments to synthesize new materials, and then using material control to simulate the interior of the material more.

In this process, he also discovered another function of material simulation, which is that he can directly simulate the nuclear fusion environment, thereby simulating the impact of neutron irradiation and high-temperature plasma on materials.

This function can be said to be quite powerful, which means that there is no need to put the synthesized materials into the nuclear fusion device to try it again, and it can be done directly by simulating.

You have to know that the cost of igniting a nuclear fusion fire is quite high. The electricity bill required to heat the fuel to hundreds of millions of degrees is not a small amount of money. Add to that the subsequent maintenance costs, it will cost a lot of money.

Moreover, using this function, he can also observe what the interior of the material will look like after neutron irradiation and high-temperature plasma impact, so as to make targeted improvements.
And just like that, time passed quickly.

……

The days gradually entered into March.

And the report meeting on the proof of the NS equation is getting closer.

As a result, Xiao Yi had to temporarily suspend his research on the first wall material and began to spend part of his time preparing for the report meeting.

Currently, the number of people who have confirmed that they will attend this symposium has reached nearly two thousand, which is quite a lot.

Nearly half of them are scholars from abroad.

As for the location of the report meeting, it was finally held at the Anhui International Conference Center in Fei City. Basically, other places could not host such a large student conference with 2,000 people.

It's quite a pity for HKUST as they originally wanted to hold the event inside the school, but with such a scale, only the playground can support it.

But if such an academic conference was really held on the playground, it would probably be criticized and listed on the hot search list that night.

"There's only one week left before it starts."

In Xiao Yi's office in the Science Island Laboratory, he glanced at the date, March 3th, and there were only seven days left until March 8th.

"Well, it's time to get the PPT out."

Open the computer, start creating a new folder, and name it [2024.3.15NS Equation Proof Report PPT].

Create a PPT file, simply use a template, and start typing.

As for whether the PPT looks good...

Well, he is not a student who has to defend a thesis and needs to pay attention to whether the PPT looks good or not.

However, just after he typed the topic on page 1, there was a knock on the office door.

"Please come in."

He said.

As the door opened, Liu Xiaodong walked in.

"Professor Xiao!"

Xiao Yi took a look, raised his eyebrows, and asked, "Liu Xiaodong, what's the matter?"

Liu Xiaodong walked forward, holding a stack of A4 paper in his hand, and said, "Professor, do you still remember the thing I found?"

Xiao Yi nodded: "Of course I remember."

Around the time when he developed the solid-state lithium-sulfur battery last year, Liu Xiaodong, while reviewing his experiments on nanoporous materials, discovered that for pore sizes between 20nm and 30nm, especially 26nm, the speed at which electrons pass through these pores increases abnormally, even by more than ten times.

A speed increase of more than ten times is a quite remarkable discovery.

At that time, Xiao Yi judged that perhaps this discovery could be as important as the discovery of the quantum anomalous Hall effect.

But at that time he was studying the Greenwald limit problem, so he didn't do it.

He couldn't help but become interested and asked, "So, have you discovered the principle?"

"Uh..." Liu Xiaodong scratched his head embarrassedly and said, "No, I don't know about that. What is clear is that it is related to some properties of carbon composite materials, or it may be some properties that have not been discovered yet."

"But this phenomenon is too random and the probability is too low, so it is difficult to verify."

Xiao Yi nodded slightly, "The paper hasn't been published yet, right?"

"That's not there."

Liu Xiaodong said embarrassedly: "You know..."

Xiao Yi smiled.

Such a discovery can be published in a top journal even if the underlying principle is not understood. However, this obviously means giving up the benefits of discovering the principle.

Therefore, unless the ultimate principle is impossible to discover, the discoverer will basically try his best to find the principle.

And obviously, this is Liu Xiaodong's situation now.

"So you're planning to cooperate with me now?"

Liu Xiaodong nodded: "Yes, I can't find the principle by myself, but Professor Xiao, you can definitely do it. Besides, Professor Xiao, you should not be busy now, right?"

Last time, Xiao Yi was busy with other things, so he let him study on his own.

It was not until some time ago that he learned that Xiao Yi had gone to study the NS equations and nuclear fusion, and even proved the NS equations by the way.

He was shocked and said no.

However, Xiao Yi should be free now, right?

Xiao Yi pondered for a moment, then nodded: "Okay, I am indeed optimistic about this research. Since you are willing to study with me, then I will not refuse."

The reason why he refused at the beginning, in addition to being busy with other things, was also because this thing was discovered by Liu Xiaodong, so he decided to let Liu Xiaodong study it himself first to see if he could come up with any results.

Liu Xiaodong immediately showed joy on his face.

This wave is stable!

“Are these experimental data?”

Xiao Yi looked at the A4 papers he brought and asked.

"Yes, these are all the data that I have selected and found to be more valuable. Please take a look."

Liu Xiaodong handed the data to Xiao Yi.

After Xiao Yi took it, he started reading it.

These data are mainly the results of analyzing different samples using various experimental instruments, and they contain a lot of information.

As Xiao Yi watched, gradually, his eyes began to narrow.

"interesting."

These data are helpful for studying the various properties of carbon composites.

perhaps……