However, in fact, he remembered it wrong. To be more precise, he did not remember the chemical formula of plant ash at all. The chemical formula of plant ash is not potassium hydroxide, but potassium carbonate.

Potassium carbonate adds water to form potassium bicarbonate. The plant ash solution is potassium bicarbonate, not potassium hydroxide at all.

How bad do you have to be in chemistry to not even remember the chemical formula of plant ash? If you tell me this, it will make people laugh to death.

However, even though Mr. Li was so bad at chemistry, he miraculously produced high-purity potassium hydroxide by accident.

Not only did he create it, he also figured out a way to purify and remove impurities. Not only that, despite being full of loopholes and knowing nothing about it, he was able to think of a way to test the properties of the substance, and even used some simple starch, alcohol, and grease.

For things like vinegar, after a round of testing, not only the alkaline nature of the unknown substance was successfully detected, but also many strange reactions with unknown principles were discovered.

Add starch to potassium hydroxide, and it changes color; add alcohol, and it reacts with alcohol, and the bowl becomes hot; add vinegar, and it reacts, and the bowl becomes hot; add grease, and it will change in one step. Potassium hydroxide is too alkaline, and grease will occur instantly.

Violent saponification reaction.

The operation that makes people laugh to death is that Mr. Li's chemical level is hopelessly bad. Even if he has done all these tests, even if he is 100% sure that the unknown substance is a super strong alkali, even if he has reached this point,

At that time, he was still extremely puzzled as to what this super strong alkali was.

The test was over for the time being. Li Mengxi still stubbornly believed that the plant ash solution was potassium hydroxide, but the real potassium hydroxide, which was prepared from the plant ash solution and lime water solution, was particularly corrosive. This real hydrogen

Potassium oxide, named by Li Mengxi - [unknown strong base].

This is simply a shame.

——

An unknown ends, and more unknowns appear.

The new unknown is——

First, strong alkali is added to the flour, turning it into a strange blue color. Why is this so?

Secondly, alcohol is added with a strong alkali, which releases heat, and the bowl becomes hot. Is this a reaction, is it producing some kind of substance, or is it simply a physical heat release caused by diluting concentrated sulfuric acid with water? Unknown. And why is this so?

Third, find an unusually strong alkali that is invisible. What can this super strong alkali do?

Li Mengxi thought about the many uses of super strong alkali, many of which are low-end and boring. He thought that strong alkali is so corrosive that it can be used as gold juice and poured down from the top of the city. Also, strong alkali is colorless and odorless.

You can poison the person and give it to the assassin, who will change someone's wine into a strong alkali. When someone drinks and becomes unconscious, he takes a sip and the strong alkali goes down the throat to the intestines and stomach, and then he dies and cannot be saved by the gods.

This is not a mainstream usage.

Fortunately, Li Mengxi still remembered papermaking. He wondered if ordinary alkali could not boil wood residue into pulp, then whether a super strong alkali would be feasible.

Before starting to test papermaking technology with super strong alkali, a test must be carried out to test the solubility problem, that is, to test whether the solubility of this unknown strong alkali will increase as the temperature increases, or whether it will

Decreases as temperature increases.

The test process is very simple. First take a small bowl and keep adding alkali powder into it. When it can no longer be dissolved, put it on the fire and heat it.

After heating for a while, Li Mengxi saw that the alkali powder that was originally insoluble in the bowl gradually dissolved.

At the end of the test, it has been found that the solubility of the unknown strong alkali will increase as the temperature increases, which shows that the boiling method can be used when making paper.

Suppose, if the test result is that the solubility of strong alkali will decrease as the temperature increases, then the papermaking technology will have to be changed to soaking the wood chips at room temperature instead of heating.

——

In the papermaking workshop, Li Mengxi came with half a basket of wood residue and a bowl of white powder. He asked the craftsmen to add the white powder to the pot and start making paper.

The craftsmen followed orders.

As a control group, the pressure cooker was set up with four ports, one was placed with a plant ash solution and bark added, one was placed with a strong alkali solution and bark was added, one was placed with a plant ash solution plus sawdust, and one was placed with a plant ash solution plus sawdust.

Seal the pot and heat.

After two hours, open the pot and check.

Among the four pots of pulp cooked, in the first pot, the plant ash solution was added with bark, and the pulp was boiled. In the second pot, strong alkali was added with bark. A comparison found that the pulp cooked with strong alkali was very rotten, and the pulp was rotten.

The fibers are all distinct and can no longer be scattered.

The most important thing is the pot at the back. When Li Mengxi walked to the pot with sawdust to strengthen the alkali, a pot of black and unpleasant-smelling stuff was cooked in the pot. When he picked it up, he saw that there was no wood residue left in the black slurry.

, Li Mengxi smiled, it’s done.

Sure enough, if the alkalinity is strong enough, strong alkali can boil wood residue into pulp.

He breathed a long sigh of relief. With the strong alkali, there was no need for alcohol, which was too expensive.

Li Mengxi asked someone to get the net to make paper and take a look. He brought the net and was about to make pulp. Li Mengxi stopped. He realized one thing. The pulp cooked with strong alkali is also highly alkaline.

, if it comes into contact with the skin, it is so corrosive that the skin on your hands will be corroded.

Therefore, after boiling the pulp with strong alkali, the pulp should be washed with water before starting papermaking.

Find a bucket, fill half the bucket with clean water, pour the black pulp into it, stir for a while, then cover the entire bucket with a net and filter out all the water in the bucket.

Then, after washing the black pulp several times in the same way, Li Mengxi grabbed the paper pulp with his hands. The paper pulp did not feel any burning in his hands, which meant that the strong alkali had been washed away.

However, when Li Mengxi looked at the dark black water flowing under his feet, he couldn't help but frown.

Preparing strong alkali is a bit troublesome. It is best to collect the papermaking waste liquid and reuse it. Also, will the papermaking industry inevitably produce black pulp? The smell of black pulp is too unpleasant, and where to put the black pulp is also a problem.

The space in the city is narrow. If the papermaking industry is placed entirely in the city and the black pulp flows along the ditches, it won't take long for the city to be filled with a strange smell.

Therefore, the papermaking industry is best placed outside the city, preferably by the river, and the papermaking wastewater is discharged along the river...

Thinking of this, Li Mengxi suddenly realized that the environmental damage caused by the paper industry was a huge problem.

Although the papermaking industry of the Rebel Army was only artificial production and was not comparable to the chemical factories of later generations, no matter how manual the production was, thousands of people were put into production, and the pollution produced was comparable to that of a small paper mill.

The destructive power of paper mills is extremely terrifying. As long as there is a paper mill by the river, it will not take long for the river water downstream to turn black and fish and shrimp will die. The smell will fill the sky. When the water quality is seriously damaged, people and animals will drink it.

Diseases occur, crops are watered, and crops wither and turn yellow.

The papermaking industry will be an important support for the rebel economy in the near future. The scale of papermaking will only get bigger and bigger, and the pollution will be so terrible that the rivers and ditches will be overwhelmed. Therefore, it is best to place the papermaking base.

Near a large river, place it near a large river with fast currents.

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! At the same time, in order to reduce pollution and improve waste utilization, Li Mengxi was thinking about the black pulp produced by papermaking. What would be the main component of the black pulp? Since it is

The waste residue left in trees, then, can these tree waste be used as firewood?

Another thing is, if the papermaking industry is not located in the city but outside the city, placed near the river and far away from Julu City, the distance will be too far and it will be out of reach, and the difficulty of keeping the technology secret will be greatly increased.

After thinking for a moment, Li Mengxi thought of a way to keep it secret. He thought that the technology could be protected by controlling the drugs.

In papermaking technology, whether it is a weak alkali that boils bark, a strong alkali that boils wood residue, or activated carbon that removes color, these things are difficult for ordinary people to understand.

As long as the secrets of manufacturing these key drugs are kept well, the drugs are manufactured in a unified and confidential manner at the headquarters, and then transported to the paper-making base. The manufacturing of drugs and the manufacturing of paper are separated. In this way, even if someone has watched the entire process of paper-making at the paper-making base,

process, but he didn't have the medicine in hand, so he would just go back and imitate the same, and put the broken wood into a pot to boil, but he was determined not to make pulp.

Papermaking technology and materials are not the key. The basic principles of papermaking have been spread all over the world. The chemicals that treat materials are the key.

——

After several washes of the wood pulp boiled with strong alkali, the alkalinity is no longer that strong. Add some water, stir the wood pulp, and start making paper.

The pulp was poured out of the barrel and poured onto the net. The craftsman shook the net left and right twice, and the pulp spread out evenly.

After a while, the paper pulp solidified, and the craftsman peeled off the paper and pasted it on the fire wall. Soon, the paper dried.

The craftsman brought the finished paper over. Li Mengxi took the paper and looked at it carefully. The paper was the original color of wood, gray with yellow, and almost brown in color. There was no big problem with the color.

However, Li Mengxi found that the texture of the paper was a bit too rough.

In normal papermaking, the fibers are not obviously mixed in the paper, but in this paper, the fibers are very clear and rough. It seems that only the fibers are left in the whole paper, and nothing else is left, and there are many gaps between the fibers.

It seems like it is too spread apart and the bond is not strong. The paper is very crisp and easy to tear.

It's also strange. Li Mengxi still remembers that paper made from pulp boiled with alcohol is very tough.

But why, the paper made by boiling it with strong alkali is obviously made of wood pulp, but the paper made is so fragile.

Is it because of the strong alkali? Or is it because the pulp has been cleaned?

Whether it is related to strong alkali or cleaning, there is no way to solve it. Strong alkali must be used. Strong alkali is highly corrosive, so it must be cleaned before making paper.

After rubbing the paper in his hand a few times, Li Mengxi looked at the wrinkled and torn pulp. He frowned and thought about how to improve the quality of the paper.

The poor quality of paper is not related to fiber. Wood fiber is not inferior to bark fiber. The problem is not fiber. Then it may be that the strong alkali has digested something in the wood pulp too thoroughly, or the root cause is

In the cleaning step, after the wood pulp is washed with water many times and then the paper is remade, it is no longer so tight.

But Li Mengxi didn't understand what the problem was.

As a last resort, we have to continue testing.

Get two pressure cookers again, add strong alkali and wood chips to one pot, add strong liquor and wood chips to the other pot, seal the pot and bring to a boil. After a long time, open the pot for inspection.

This time, the alkali wood pulp was not washed and paper was made directly.

The carpenters placed the net on the wooden board, carefully poured the strong alkali on the net, and then used the wooden board to spread the wood pulp.

On the other side, pulp cooked in alcohol is used to make paper in the same way.

After a period of time, two kinds of pulp were produced, one was strong alkali pulp and the other was alcohol pulp, both of which were not cleaned.

Li Mengxi picked up the two pieces of paper and compared them, and found a difference.

For some reason, the paper produced by boiling the pulp with strong alkali has a rough, rough texture with distinct fibers, and the paper is a bit crispy.
To be continued...