Hand rubbing nuclear fusion live in the wilderness

Chapter 379 Complete the smelting of rare metals
A piece of ore enters the crusher from Won's hands, turns into crushed stone, and then turns into powder through the mill, and then enters the mixer.

A large amount of river water drawn from the small river enters the mixer and fuses with the ore powder to become ore slurry.

After preliminary fusion, the ore pulp is further transported to a large mine pool for storage, and the previously prepared 'flotation liquid' will be put into it in turn.

The stirring tools deployed on the mine pool are like the blades of a fan, constantly stirring the ore pulp in the mine pool, so that the ore pulp and the flotation liquid are fully fused and function.

Countless large and small bubbles floated on the surface of the fused and stirred pulp, as if mixed with soapy water.

The processed pulp will be extracted, separated, deposited, added with standing liquid and other materials, and stored in another mine pool to wait for precipitation.

After a round of precipitation, the ore soil that settles at the bottom is the concentrate containing rare metals.

After the shovels are taken out to dry, they can be loaded onto the aircraft and transported back to the Amazon rainforest base.

There, these selected ore soils will be turned into different rare metals, enriching his reserve materials.

It took nearly a week for South Korea to select all the collected rare earth ores.

There are not many selected ore soils, and the total amount is only [-] tons, which is equivalent to [-] tons of raw ore to extract one ton of concentrated ore.

Moreover, in the [-] tons of concentrate extracted here, the rare metal content should be less than [-] kilograms.

Of course, this part does not include the weathering crust leaching type rare earth ore.

Ion-adsorbed rare earths need to be processed in another way, and the Korean won is not going to be processed in Huaguo.

In addition, ion-adsorbed ore soil itself is a kind of concentrate, but its smelting method is rather special.

This kind of ore won't be collected much, and the total amount does not exceed three tons. After all, this is a rich ore, and it doesn't need too many rare metals to collect specimens to complete the "resource collection" task.

Three tons of ion-adsorbed rare earths plus [-] tons of finely-selected ore soil, the total did not exceed seven tons, and within the carrying range of the aircraft, they could all be transported away at once.

After completing the selection of rare earth ores, the Korean won did not stay in the country for too long.

After confirming that Xiao Qi could stably control the launch of the space shuttle and monitor the insect nest, he returned to the Amazon rainforest base with the selected ore soil and the four little guys.

Although the housekeeper Xiaoqi took care of daily life when he was at the Taishan base, he lived a comfortable life.

But there is not a complete substrate after all, the area is not large enough, and a lot of industrial equipment is missing, so many experiments cannot be done.

On the Amazon rainforest side, he has lived here for six or seven years, and he is more familiar with the situation here, and staying there is more natural.

The selected ore soil collected and transported back from the country was smelted by Korean won immediately.

Although the rare metals collected and refined this time were not much in weight, less than one kilogram, they increased the 'resource collection' task a lot.

Moreover, he also has unsmelted ion-adsorbed rare earths collected from weathering crust elution-type rare earth ores.

If the ion-adsorbed rare earth is also smelted, the several rare earths contained in it can increase his progress a lot.

After smelting the rare metals in the ion-adsorbing rare earth, one of the two tasks of resource collection is almost done.

In the remaining time, he needs to complete another basic requirement.

"Smelting and synthesizing three unnatural elements."

This is another condition in the resource collection mission, which requires him to artificially synthesize three unnatural elements.

Fortunately, this task can be done with isotopes or allotropes.

Otherwise, Won really doesn't know how to do this task.

Artificially synthesizing unnatural elements, in the eyes of most people, this is already the top technology of human beings.

Generally speaking, artificial elements are produced through certain nuclear reactions using particle accelerators or nuclear reactors, and ordinary means are useless at all.

The key to artificially synthesizing unnatural elements is to use the nucleus of one element as a "cannonball" to bombard the nucleus of another element.

When its energy is enough to "break through" the shell of the nucleus and fuse into a new nucleus, the number of protons changes and a new element is created.

The change of the proton numbers of the two elements strictly follows the addition principle, just like 1+1=2.

But artificially synthesizing unnatural elements is much harder than doing the math.

In the nineteenth century, Marie Curie's daughter first found a way to "add" atoms.

At that time, she was working in the Institute of Radium in Paris. Through research, she found that the nucleus of the radioactive element 'polonium' would eject its fragments - 'helium nucleus' at a very high speed when it was undergoing fission.

In the helium nucleus, there are 2 protons. Marie Curie's daughter used 'helium fragments' as shells to "fire" on the metal aluminum plate.

Thus, one of the greatest miracles in human history occurred.

The bombarded aluminum turned into phosphorus!
Aluminum, is a metal; phosphorus, is a non-metal.

Why does aluminum turn into phosphorus?
With atomic "addition", things are very simple.

Aluminum is the 13th element in the periodic table, and its nucleus contains 13 protons.

It absorbs the helium nuclei as 'helium nuclei fragments' rush towards it at extremely high speeds.

而氦核中含有2个质子。13+2=15于是，形成了一个含有15个质子的新原子核。

Phosphorus is the 15th element in the periodic table of heads of state.

It is easy to do addition mathematically, but it is difficult to realize the nuclear reaction to generate new elements.

Because no matter which method is used, expensive special experimental devices (such as cyclotrons or nuclear reactors) and superb experimental techniques are required.

These are things at the top of the human technology pyramid.

Even for South Korean won, it is difficult to produce artificial elements that do not exist on earth without particle accelerators and nuclear reactors.

However, the task requirements do not strictly limit the artificially synthesized elements to be artificial elements.

Three unnatural elements were smelted and synthesized. Among the unnatural elements, besides the man-made elements produced by particle accelerators or nuclear reactors, there are two other things.

Isotopes and allotropes.

On the periodic table of elements, there are a total of 118 elements, all of which have isotopes in nature, but about 20 of them do not have stable isotopes.

The smelting and synthesis of three unnatural elements in the resource collection task can use isotopes and allotropes as targets, but the requirements are not found in nature.

Synthesizing isotopes and allotropes is obviously less difficult than using a particle accelerator to synthesize three brand new elemental materials.

Of course, this difficulty is relative, only for the current Korean won.

For humans who have already mastered large-scale particle accelerators, it is actually not difficult to synthesize three new elemental materials and create isotopes by using atomic nucleus collisions.

In fact, on the periodic table of elements, from the 95th element americium to the 118th element 'Qi'ao', they are basically artificially synthesized.

Of course, this does not mean that these elements do not exist in nature, but because these elements are radioactive elements with a short decay period, it is basically impossible to collect enough materials from the natural environment for research.

Making isotopes is even simpler.

An isotope is one of two or more atoms of the same chemical element that have the same atomic number.

Isotopes do not occupy positions on the periodic table, that is to say, isotopes and native elements occupy the same position.

The chemical behavior between the two is almost the same, but the atomic weight or mass number is different, resulting in differences in their mass spectral behavior, radioactive transitions and physical properties.

For example, nitrogen isotopes have slightly different diffusion speeds and methods in the gaseous state. Some diffuse quickly, while others diffuse slowly. Even in different media, their forms are also somewhat different.

Isotopes and allotropes are more technologically useful than a completely new element.

For example, carbon 14 is widely used as a marking element because of its weak radiation.

Or some isotopes with strong radioactivity can be used in medical treatment. Whether it is chemotherapy or other treatment methods, these artificially synthesized isotopes are inseparable.

As for how to complete the preparation of the three unnatural elements this time, Han Yuan has already thought about it and arranged it.

This time he combined one isotope and two allotropes.

The isotope is the isotope of lithium - Li8, while the allotropes are carbon and nickel.

These three things are all things he needs to use later.

Very important.

So taking advantage of the time left in the second year, Han Yuan plans to develop some materials needed for follow-up missions first.

Lithium was chosen as the isotope because it is the key material used to make lithium-air batteries.

Lithium has two stable isotopes, Li6 and Li7, in nature.

核外电子构型都为2-5-1，相对原子质量分别为6和7，是最轻的金属。

Together, these two stable isotopes combine to form lithium metal.

The lithium isotope he chose to prepare is Li8, which is the key material for the preparation of lithium-air batteries.

Compared with the lithium-sulfur battery he developed before, the lithium-air battery has better performance and higher energy storage density.

This lithium-air battery, made using the lithium isotope Li8, is not the kind of waste that the small island nation researched.

It is something in the knowledge information of intermediate electric energy application.

One of the major difficulties of lithium-air batteries is that the positive electrode accumulates solid reaction products, blocking the contact between the electrolyte and the air, leading to problems such as stopping the discharge.

The lithium cathode made of lithium isotope Li8 can perfectly solve this problem.

In the case of lithium-sulfur batteries with high energy storage, the reason why South Korea still manufactures lithium-air batteries is because of the intelligent robots behind it.

Building artificial intelligence robots and industrial robots is something that must be done later.

Otherwise, the follow-up tasks will not be completed at all.

As for the other two allotropes, carbon and nickel, it is to solve the material problem.

There are many allotropes of carbon.

Diamond, graphite, graphene, fullerene, linear acetylene carbon, amorphous carbon, carbon nanotubes, fiber carbon, carbon nanofoam, etc.

These are allotropes of carbon.

What he is going to manufacture this time are carbon nanotubes and gamma nickel.

Needless to say, carbon nanotubes, as one-dimensional nanomaterials, are light in weight, perfectly connected in a hexagonal structure, and have many unusual mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties, and their broad application prospects are as deep as the sea.

For example, carbon nanotubes can be made into a transparent conductive film to replace ITO (indium tin oxide) as a touch screen material.

Not only the performance is better, but also the processes of photolithography, etching and water washing are not required, which saves a lot of water and electricity, and is environmentally friendly and energy-saving.

In addition, carbon nanotubes and graphene, the allotropes of carbon, are also one of the core materials for preparing carbon-based chips.

In fact, carbon nanotubes and graphene, the allotropes of carbon, can be said to be the same thing, because carbon nanotubes can be regarded as curled graphene sheets.

It's just that the requirements and conditions for curling graphene sheets into carbon nanotubes are very high.

It has to be said that something like carbon is simply a huge treasure.

Sensors, transistors, flexible displays, energy storage (new energy batteries, hydrogen storage), filtration (seawater desalination), aerospace, etc. can be used in almost all aspects and corners of human technology.

As for gamma nickel, which is an allotrope of nickel, it is a key material for the manufacture of controllable nuclear fusion and nuclear batteries. It is called gamma nickel or demon nickel.
Of course, the name Yao Ni is a unique title for Chinese people.

The reason comes from the letter γ. Although this Greek letter is pronounced as "gamma", it looks very similar to the Y in Chinese pinyin. In addition, the nickel used to cause a storm, so it is called "demon nickel".

As we all know, nuclear fusion is the process in which two lighter nuclei fuse into a heavier nucleus and release energy.

There are three types of controllable nuclear fusion currently being studied by humans, namely deuterium and tritium fusion, deuterium and helium 3 fusion, and helium 3 and helium 3 fusion.

Among them, deuterium and tritium fusion is the "first generation" fusion, also known as DT nuclear fusion, which is the controllable nuclear fusion data he obtained from the former host of Taishan Base and is studying.

The advantage of deuterium and tritium fusion is that the fuel is cheap, and the disadvantage is that there are neutrons, and neutrons are irradiated.

During the fusion process, the neutrons released can cause damage to the material, not only the chemical bonds between the material crystals, but also the purest physical structure damage.

To put it simply, after being hit by a neutron stream, basically most of the materials will be brittle, weakened, and the structure will be damaged. If it is serious, it will turn into a pile of slag powder if you rub it with your hands.

This is also an extremely difficult problem in controlled nuclear fusion.

And gamma nickel is one of the basic materials to solve this problem.

This is also the reason why South Korean Won chooses to manufacture gamma nickel, carbon nanotubes and Li8 to complete the smelting and synthesis of three unnatural elements in resource collection.

They are all materials that must be used later.

(End of this chapter)