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Chapter 871 Another way to make a fortune

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    In the 201 laboratory.

    "These pieces were fired before improvement. Master has seen them all." Xing Yunlu skipped the first three pieces, pointed to the fourth piece and said, "This was fired according to Master's instructions after looking for high-quality white quartz sand."

    "Well, it's indeed much more transparent." Zhao Hao nodded happily. The transmittance of this piece was visibly improved compared to the first three pieces.

    "The fifth and sixth pieces are the same, but the origin of the quartz sand is different." Xing Yunlu said: "Currently, the quartz sand collected from Heshang Mountain in Huzhou Prefecture has the best effect."

    "Yeah." Zhao Hao nodded. He really didn't know where the quartz sand was the best. He could only rely on the research institute to constantly search and try.

    Xing Yunlu pointed to the seventh piece again and said: "This is fired after removing iron."

    Then he pointed to the eighth piece and said: "This is fired after removing iron and cleaning the quartz sand twice Through comparison, it can be seen that these two processes can indeed greatly improve the quality of glass, and it can be seen that what the master said is correct, the purity of quartz sand  It does affect the quality of the glass.¡±

    "Yeah." Zhao Hao didn't feel offended at all. Scientists should doubt everything and rely on experiments to speak for themselves. This is the spirit he repeatedly passed on to his disciples.

    Mr. Zhao carefully took out the eighth piece of glass from the shelf and raised it to his eyes.

    ? Then he saw that there was only a faint green left in the glass.  You can also see the freckles on Qu Rukui's face clearly through the glass.

    "Not bad, not bad, great progress." Zhao Hao nodded with satisfaction, although it was still far from optical glass.  Compared with the ninth piece on the shelfthe Thai glass bought from the Frenchman in Macau, there is still a certain gap.

    But it¡¯s only been a few months?  He had already narrowed the gap to miles, so he had no reason not to be confident.

    ¡°Master, it¡¯s very gray here, let¡¯s go to the next link.¡± Xing Yunlu was flattered by the master¡¯s praise and said suppressing his excitement.

    ¡°You must pay attention to protection, wear masks, ventilate well, and eat black fungus every day.¡± Zhao Hao nodded and gave a few more instructions.  I believe that with Xing Yunlu¡¯s seriousness, he will strictly implement all the regulations.

    ??~~

    Xing Yunlu opened the door curtain again and invited the master into the purification room next door.

    There are three purification rooms, the first one is used to extract potassium carbonate from plant ash.

    The biggest difficulty in burning glass with sand is that it is difficult to raise the furnace temperature to a temperature that directly melts the sand.  Later, the Venetians accidentally discovered that the melting point of sand could be greatly reduced by adding natural soda in the salt lake.

    This was regarded as a top secret by the Italians and kept for more than five hundred years.  For this reason they only produce glass on the isolated island of Murano.  And the people on the island are not allowed to leave for generations to come.

    This is also the reason why Thai and Western glass is expensive.

    However, as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, our ancestors knew that plant ash could also be used as a flux.

    Originally, the workers of the Glass Bureau poured plant ash directly into the sand, but this mixed in too many impurities, which greatly affected the quality of the glass.

    The chemical knowledge stored in Mr. Zhao¡¯s mind told him that the active ingredient in plant ash is potassium carbonate.  Potassium carbonate, like sodium carbonate, can be used as a flux when firing glass.

    And potassium carbonate is a soluble salt substance, so Zhao Hao asked Xing Yunlu to dissolve the plant ash first, filter it with a fine mesh to remove the residue, concentrate it and crystallize it, and then you can get potassium carbonate crystals.

    But everything is easier said than done. It took the laboratory nearly a month to come up with a complete set of tools such as filters and evaporators. This has just begun the purification test and has not been used for firing yet.

    So Zhao Hao doesn¡¯t know whether this method is helpful for burning glass.  But you won¡¯t lose money by purifying plant ash.

    "This is a good thing." Zhao Hao picked up a handful of white crystal powder and showed a crazy smile.

    With potassium carbonate, soap can be produced.

    With soap, you can hey hey it's not as dirty as you think, you can produce real explosives - yellow gunpowder!

    But it¡¯s a pity that Mr. Zhao doesn¡¯t even plan to take out smokeless gunpowder too soon, let alone nitroglycerine gunpowder

    Thinking of this, he put away his smile with great loss of interest, and said to Zhang Jian behind him: "When Institute 04 is built, the purification work can be carried out cooperatively. The purpose of putting the institutes together is to cooperate with each other and exchange knowledge."

    "Yes, Master." Zhang Jian quickly wrote it down in his notebook.

    The director of the research center is a careless person, while the executive deputy director, Old Man Gao, is in charge of things other than research work.  The research institute's business depends entirely on him as the deputy director., no matter how good your memory is, you will never miss anything.

    What is purified in the second purification room is the Glauber's salt that was brought back from Fengyang before.  Glauber's salt is used as a clarifier, which can greatly improve the transparency of glass.

    The third purification chamber purifies quicklime. Firstly, quicklime also has a fluxing effect, and secondly, it can adjust the material properties of the glass liquid.

    After leaving the purification room, we came to the material preparation workshop next to the kiln.

    ¡°The craftsmen poured the quartz sand into a tub like a bathtub. After cleaning it twice, they added auxiliary materials and then sent it to the kiln.

    Although it is the twelfth lunar month of winter, the craftsmen beside the kiln are all bare-chested and sweating profusely.

    Zhao Hao also took off his cloak and looked through the furnace mouth.

    They saw that in the furnace made of Xishan Island's specialty refractory bricks, the quartz sand that had been put in had been melted into a bright yellow syrupy consistency.

    A craftsman stretches a five-foot iron pipe like a gun barrel into the furnace and wraps it in a thick mass of glass liquid like a dipping sauce. This step is called ¡®picking materials¡¯.

    The picked glass liquid must be shaped within three minutes, and it will solidify if there is a slight delay.

    I saw the glass craftsman standing on a high platform, holding the iron pipe with both hands, putting his mouth on the end, taking a deep breath and blowing hard.

    ??Blow a ball, blow a big rubber balloh no, blow a big glass bubble.

    The craftsman quickly rotates the iron pipe while blowing it back. The glass bubble slowly falls on the iron plate with a smooth surface, and expands outward under the action of centrifugal force, forming a large disk with a smooth and flat surface.  Then the craftsman tapped the lower end of the blow rod, and the glass was disconnected from the blow rod.

    This step not only requires strong arm strength, but also requires a very large lung capacity.

    "Don't look at these few times, they are all years of hard work. Only Liuli Bureau in the entire Ming Dynasty has such highly skilled craftsmen.

    Zhao Hao spent ten thousand taels of silver to dig out these ten masters.  And only half of them can blow glass.

    At this time, the glass plate has begun to cool, and it needs to be baked again until it is soft. Then, a double-handled iron roller with a shiny surface is used to roll the glass plate evenly like rolling dough. Finally, it is sent to the deheating furnace next door to cool down.  The Queen of Heaven is the finished glass.

    Zhao Hao couldn't wait that long. He felt like he was going to be roasted, so he hurriedly left here.

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