I started with a ship full of max-level veterans, and I'm just a complete noob.

As Jiang Ming looked at the snow-like pile of wet cerium oxalate material in the enamel tray, the red line given by the materials pioneer during his spiritual communication resurfaced in his mind.

650 degrees Celsius, keep warm for no more than two hours.

He turned and walked toward the vacuum annealing furnace in the corner of Workshop No. 1. The outer shell of this old Soviet-era equipment was rusted, and the pointer on the dial always had an elusive tremor.

"Old Sun, rewire the heating resistance wire of the annealing furnace, bypassing the original coarse adjustment knob and connecting it directly to our homemade slide wire rheostat."

Jiang Ming pointed to the huge coil under the control panel.

"I have to manually adjust the current to keep the furnace temperature firmly at 650 degrees Celsius, with a fluctuation of no more than five degrees."

Without saying a word, Lao Sun picked up his toolbox and crawled behind the equipment, the sound of the pliers cutting the old wires crisp and clean.

An hour later, the line renovation was completed.

Jiang Ming spread two kilograms of wet cerium oxalate material evenly in several large quartz boats, pushed them into the furnace, and closed the furnace door.

He sat down in front of the rheostat himself, his eyes fixed on the thermometer scale.

The heating process was very long, and to prevent the water from boiling and causing the powder to splatter, he made the heating curve for the first 200 degrees Celsius very flat.

When the temperature approaches 600 degrees Celsius, violent chemical changes begin to occur inside the furnace.

When cerium oxalate is heated, it decomposes and releases a large amount of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide gas. The vacuum pump emits a dull roar as it desperately tries to extract these waste gases out of the furnace.

The pointer slowly climbed up to the 650-degree mark.

Jiang Ming's fingers rested on the slider of the rheostat, as if he were operating a precision instrument. As soon as the thermometer needle showed any tendency to jump upward, he would immediately fine-tune the resistance to reduce the current.

For two whole hours, he sat there motionless, sweat dripping from his chin onto his work clothes.

When the cooling process ended and the furnace door was reopened, the originally muddy cerium oxalate had turned into a fine, milky-white powder.

Xiao Zhao picked up a little powder with a glass rod, observed it under a microscope, and after a moment looked up with excitement on his face.

"Mr. Jiang, the crystal grains are very uniform, with the vast majority between one and two micrometers, and there are no large particle clusters."

Jiang Ming walked over and glanced at the eyepiece, feeling a sense of relief.

"Particle size is acceptable; prepare to prepare electrophoresis suspension."

We have cerium oxide powder, but to make it move uniformly in the electric field and adhere to the cathode substrate, we must prepare a perfect colloidal solution.

The worktable was covered with glass beakers, and the air was filled with the sweet aroma of acetone evaporating.

Jiang Ming used acetone as a dispersion solvent, added a very small amount of nitrocellulose as a binder, and finally poured in the weighed cerium oxide powder.

The glass rod was stirred rapidly, and the liquid in the beaker turned into a uniform milky white color.

"The success or failure of a suspension depends entirely on its pH level."

Jiang Ming held the probe of the conductivity meter in his hand, his eyes fixed on the dial.

"pH value determines the charge density on the surface of cerium oxide particles. If there is too little charge, the particles will attract each other and clump together, while too much charge will disrupt the colloidal stability."

He looked at Xiao Zhao standing opposite him.

"Add dilute nitric acid using a burette, one drop at a time. After you finish adding the first drop, wait for me to call out the number before adding the next drop."

Xiao Zhao swallowed hard, his hand gripping the glass stopcock of the burette, his knuckles turning white from excessive force.

A drop of clear, dilute nitric acid falls into a milky-white suspension.

Jiang Ming stirred the glass rod, glanced at the conductivity meter, and then used tweezers to pick up a pH test paper and dip it in.

"pH 5.2, continue."

Another drop fell.

Time passed slowly in the monotonous repetition, and the sky outside the window was completely dark.

"pH 4.5, continue."

When Xiao Zhao dripped the thirtieth drop of dilute nitric acid, Jiang Minggang had just put the test strip into the beaker when his expression suddenly changed.

The originally uniform and delicate milky white liquid underwent a terrible change within seconds.

It's like pouring vinegar into hot milk; large flocculent particles instantly appear in the solution.

The cerium oxide particles that were originally suspended lost their electrostatic repulsion and frantically clumped together, turning into visible sediment particles that quickly fell to the bottom of the beaker.

In less than half a minute, the upper half of the beaker turned into a clear liquid, while the lower half was filled with lifeless white mud.

Extensive flocculation renders the suspension completely unusable.

Xiao Zhao's hand trembled, and he almost knocked over the burette.

"How could this happen? It was fine just now."

Jiang Ming looked at the color on the test strip, his voice becoming somewhat somber.

"The pH value is 4.2, which has exceeded the critical point, and the colloid has been destroyed."

Wu Hanzhang stood to the side, looking at the sediment at the bottom of the glass, and sighed.

"Is the particle size of the powder still too large?"

"It's not a problem with particle size, it's a problem with the electric field environment causing interference."

Jiang Ming poured the waste liquid into the recycling bin, walked to the sink and washed his hands. The cold water washing over his skin calmed his agitated mind a little.

He dried his hands, pulled up a chair, sat down, and closed his eyes.

The "Networking Record" is open again.

The phantom of a pioneer in materials interface physics surfaced in my consciousness, still with that aloof and arrogant tone.

Jiang Ming didn't waste any words and directly described the flocculation phenomenon and the pH value at that time.

The pioneer didn't hesitate for even a second and gave the answer directly.

"Acetone contains water."

Jiang Ming was taken aback.

"We use industrial-grade acetone supplied by a chemical plant, with a purity of 99%."

"One percent water is negligible in macroscopic chemistry, but it is a deadly poison in the microscopic electric field of electrophoretic deposition."

The pioneer's tone carried an undisguised professional dominance.

"Water molecules preferentially adsorb onto the surface of cerium oxide particles, causing severe distortion of the electric field gradient in a localized area. You add nitric acid to adjust the pH value, intending to increase the surface charge, but the water molecules neutralize all the charge, so it's no wonder flocculation occurs."

Jiang Ming immediately pressed for more information.

"How do we solve this? We don't have reagent-grade acetone of higher purity."

"Dehydrate yourself."

The pioneers provided a clear process route.

"Add freshly calcined quicklime to acetone, let it stand to dehydrate for 24 hours, and then redistill. Remember, when preparing the suspension, the pH must be precisely controlled at 4.8, which is the golden equilibrium point in anhydrous acetone."

Jiang Ming opened his eyes, stood up from the chair, and his gaze regained its sharpness.

"Xiao Zhao, go to the warehouse and get a bag of quicklime. Make sure it's not damp."

Xiao Zhao was stunned for a moment.

"What's the point of extracting quicklime?"

"Dehydrate acetone."

Jiang Ming has begun cleaning the flasks and condensers, preparing to set up a simple distillation apparatus.

"The trace amounts of water in industrial acetone disrupt the colloidal electric field, so it must be made into an absolutely anhydrous state."

For the next 24 hours, Workshop No. 1 was busy working non-stop.

Quicklime was crushed and thrown into an acetone drum, where a large number of bubbles rolled and carried away the moisture.

What followed was a long and dangerous distillation process. Acetone is extremely flammable, and Lao Sun stood by with a fire extinguisher, not daring to even blink.

When the first bottle of clear, anhydrous acetone was filled, Jiang Ming immediately began preparing the second suspension.

This time, he held the burette himself.

As dilute nitric acid drips down, the color of the pH test paper slowly moves across the color chart.

When the color was perfectly set at the 4.8 level, Jiang Ming stopped adding drops.

The liquid in the beaker had an almost translucent milky white luster, just like the finest mutton fat jade.

Jiang Ming placed the beaker on the workbench.

"Let it sit for twelve hours and see if it settles."

Twelve hours later, when the morning sun shone into the workshop, the suspension was still perfectly intact, without any flocculation or separation.

A stable colloidal state indicates successful preparation.

Everyone in the task force breathed a long sigh of relief; Old Sun even leaned against the wall and started snoring.

Just then, the workshop door was pushed open forcefully.

The security officer rushed in, clutching an urgent official letter stamped with the ministry's red seal.

Instead of looking for Jiang Ming, he rushed straight to Director Zhang, who was sitting at the table drinking water.

"Factory manager, an urgent document just arrived by jeep from the ministry."

Factory Director Zhang put down his teacup, opened the envelope, and after only scanning two lines, his expression completely changed.

Wu Hanzhang sensed something was wrong and went over to take a look.

The boldface on the official letter was written clearly.

The Aerodynamics Center formally applied to the ministry for the allocation of all rare earth material quotas under the name of the Third Electronics Factory, citing the urgent need for high-temperature resistant coating materials for the construction of the supersonic wind tunnel.

The most fatal line is the last one: the ministry's review team is already on its way.