Chapter 574 Franz’s Pastime (Part 2)

Chapter 574 Franz’s Pastime (Part 2)

Nitrogen is almost an inexhaustible resource on this earth. Mixing hydrogen gas can produce nitrogen fertilizer. By then, the Austrian Empire will be able to support a much larger population than it currently has.

As for Dr. Nuttler, since he had a talent for construction machinery, Franz suggested that the former become an engineer instead. Naturally, the other party readily accepted the offer, and thus there was another big shot in Austria's construction machinery field.

Franz doesn't want to limit the other party's research direction. If he wants to continue to improve the compressor, he can. If he doesn't want to, then he will disclose the research results and let others continue to study.

Mr. Babbage, who converted to the church, also encountered a bottleneck, which was the operating speed of the steam engine. The upper limit was too low, and even a perfect design could not achieve true perfection.

So the pioneer of computers began to study Archduke Franz's new power - electricity. Babbage collected a large amount of research information on electricity, and then began another sprint in a new field.

Babbage directly skipped all the previous steps to prepare for the development of an AC generator. Of course, this was just Franz's own feeling. After all, his understanding of electricity was very limited, otherwise he would have gone to work on the generator himself.

Franz tried asking other electrical experts to interpret Babbage's ideas, but others thought he was crazy.

Ada on the other side (Babbage's assistant, the daughter of Lord Byron.) is still perfecting the previous Trinity Analytical Engine.

This analysis machine has been able to achieve many leap-forward calculations, but the problem is also obvious, that is, it is too huge and runs slowly, and there is a certain probability of self-destruction.

After Babbage went to study generators, the younger Babbage took over the former's mantle and continued to preside over the research of the "Trinity" Analytical Engine.

However, the latter prefers small and delicate things to the former. He feels that as long as he can solve the problems of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, it is enough. After all, it is better to let mathematicians and calculators do the problems that are too complicated.

In fact, after Franz developed the profession of calculator, a large number of laboratories and institutions began to hire calculators, and for a time, the demand for this profession exceeded the supply.

In fact, the most ironic thing is that Babbage's Analytical Engine was never able to defeat those top mathematicians when performing complex calculations.

In addition, the development of steelmaking technology was smooth sailing. The alkaline converter steelmaking method used by the Austrian Empire at this time could well avoid the problem of high phosphorus content in the Austrian Empire's iron ore.

As for the top-bottom blowing method, it was actually invented by Austrians, so Franz’s use of it now is not considered plagiarism.

Platner and Bacher showed great interest in gas liquefaction experiments, but what they wanted was not nitrogen, but oxygen, because in this way they could achieve the kind of pure oxygen blowing that Franz said Qi method.

In fact, although the top-bottom blowing method used at this time is advanced, 79% of the air contains useless impurities. This is undoubtedly a huge waste. If it can be replaced with pure oxygen, then no matter in terms of output, quality, or Speed ​​can be improved.

In fact, their prediction was correct. Even today, the top-bottom combined oxygen converter method is one of the most advanced steelmaking methods, and it does not have as many restrictions as the electric arc furnace steelmaking method.

Once this method is realized, the quality of steel will be completely inferior to this era, and the speed will be more than ten times that of the open-hearth method.

Visiting new inventions and discussing new technologies should be Franz's biggest pastime at this time.

Someone has developed a new technology for refining mercury. This thing is of little use to the Austrian Empire itself, but fortunately, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany has the largest mercury mine in Central Europe.

Franz was able to sell the technology to Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany, who readily accepted the deal since they all belonged to the same family.

Archduke Leopold II had little interest in ruling the country and rarely interfered in national affairs. This time he accepted the deal because of family ties.

But this is also his advantage. Because he is more concerned about family affairs, Archduke Leopold II was also one of the early people to invest in Franz.

In return, the Austrian Empire now became Tuscany's largest customer of mercury.

Mercury has a wide range of uses, including but not limited to the production of chlorine and caustic soda, acetic acid, acetone, etc.

Mercury compounds can be used to make antifungal agents for leather and plants, wood preservatives, and anticorrosive paint (paint for underwater parts of ships). Mercury is also needed for military use.

Produces pigments for use in paintings, cosmetics, printing, etc. It is also a traditional medicine. It is not a legend that European doctors "cured" all kinds of diseases by bleeding and injecting mercury.

Bloodletting and mercury therapy were once two prominent therapies in the European medical community. Patients either died of blood loss and infection, or were poisoned by mercury and their blood was replaced by mercury.

However, mercury is not useless in medicine. It has certain effects in treating disinfection, diuresis, stomach diseases, skin diseases, and sexually transmitted diseases.

In addition to these, mercury can also be used to make various dosimeters, such as barometers, thermometers, sphygmomanometers, etc.

Its two main functions at this time are actually producing chlorine and extracting gold.

Although mercury is almost no longer used in the production of chlorine in modern industries, there was an extreme lack of electricity at that time. When electrolysis could not be used, the traditional mercury method was the best way.

Historically, the gold rush in California was extremely wasteful. What the gold diggers took away were only large pieces of gold sand. The gold particles and pyrite dispersed in the quartz were thrown away as garbage. Among the alchemical wastes were even more. There are a lot of gold particles remaining.

If Franz hadn't mastered the mining rights of minerals, he would have opened a recycling factory to buy the waste residue left by the gold diggers after refining gold, as well as ores that were considered unrefinable.

Don’t underestimate this humble recycling work. Turning waste into treasure is no joke. Judging from the level of waste at that time, those gold diggers might not have recovered as much gold as Franz.

In fact, Americans can still find the waste that was abandoned by the gold diggers back then, which shows the amount of waste at that time.

However, the method of extracting gold from pyrite using mercury was only proposed in 1851, but this did not prevent Franz from using it at all.

The approximate process is to first react mercury and pyrite, remove the arsenide after roasting, then add chlorine gas to pass through the ore, then add hydrochloric acid, and pass through hydrogen sulfide to precipitate the gold, while the iron molecules remain in the solution. .

With the emergence of new discoveries and new laws one after another, the iteration speed of physics and chemistry books used for teaching is also accelerating.

Franz had to hire someone to edit the new Chemistry/Physics Application Manual to keep up with the times. After all, this kind of high-intensity and fast-paced work is neither decent nor realistic for people to use love to generate electricity.

But this is for experts and scholars. For students in basic education and secondary education, those basic common sense will not change, so there is no need to worry.