Chapter 459: The Road to Chemistry
Chapter 459: The Road to Chemical Industry
Looking at the growing exuberance of the foreign guest in front of him, Paul waved his hand and said, “Please calm down, honorable prince-sama.”
He made an intolerant expression and said, “I fully understand your urgent passion for the restoration of the country, but unfortunately, I can only provide you with moral support.”
“Spiritual support? What the hell is moral support?”
The dwarf, who was not yet familiar with the Aldorian language, took three seconds to respond.
“What? That is, not giving it. Ah, mighty human lord, I have seen your soldiers, they are brave and stalwart, well trained, and armed with weapons as powerful as thunder.”
The dwarf looked incredulous.
“Think of the rewards I can give you once you succeed. As far as I know, no Dwarf tribe in the Rocky Mountains has ever befriended a human, and you will set a historical precedent by becoming an emissary of friendship between the two tribes.”
Paul spread his hands, “Perhaps you have some misunderstanding of who I am? I have no authority ……”
“Misunderstanding? Power? Are you not the master of this land? At your command, the people of this land will fight for you.”
Paul smiled and said, “‘Prince’ Your Highness, perhaps because you are a newcomer, you don’t know much about the political structure of our human race, let me explain it to you, I – Paul Gleiman, am just the Kingdom of Aldo One of the many lords, and I have a king, His Majesty, at the top of my head. If I send my army to fight outside of Aldo without authorization, I will be sued in front of the royal court, and then I will be put in small shoes by His Majesty the King.”
“What? You’re even being governed by someone else?”
Irma Stonemason’s eyes widened, “Well, where does that His Majesty the King you’re talking about live?”
“In a city called Crystal Flare located in the south.”
“How long will it take to get there?”
“It’ll probably take about 20 days on horseback.”
“Twenty days? And on horseback?”
Irma the Dwarf was greatly disappointed.
It had taken a lot of courage for him to follow the questing party to Arda.
Going further south ……
Perhaps one of the human lords along the way would be happy to have a chubby “dwarf” juggling at his feast.
“Well, human lord, would you be able to support me with a sum of money?”
“As a start to our friendship, I would be happy to provide you with a sum of money for your travel expenses and food and drink in my domain.”
Imar: “……”
With that, Paul’s meeting with his dwarven guest ended within a less than cordial atmosphere.
He called for Stanford and went over the details of his meeting with the dwarf.
Then asks Stanford: “Do you think I did the right thing?”
Stanford nodded, “I don’t think you did the right thing, we still know very little about what happened in the Rocky Mountains. And with my knowledge of this Irma is also very limited, but at least from the surface, he is not very good temper, is a …… more difficult to get along with people, in short, from the personal side, he is not a good person to be a friend.” Apart from the reason that he was merely a lord, Paul really had little interest in supporting any dwarf prince’s restoration endeavors. As Stanford had said, Alda’s knowledge of the Dwarves in the Rocky Mountains was almost a blank slate, so how could he take the other side’s word for it.
Even if Paul had the heart, he was powerless. The financial income in the territory is increasing year by year, but every penny has to be spent on the knife edge.
Just a short time ago, Paul and Wise College Chemical Laboratory several people in charge of finalized a major plan – to open the road of chemical industry.
In fact, the current Arda already has a primitive chemical industry – nitrate from dung heaps, uh …… if that counts.
Paul’s new goal was set on the large-scale production of sulfuric acid.
Currently the alchemists of this world obtain sulfuric acid by distilling alum-based substances, which is time-consuming and inefficient in small quantities.
So Paul suggested that the alchemists use the lead chamber method to make sulfuric acid.
The approximate strategy is to build a cubic lead chamber made of lead plates that can resist corrosion by sulfuric acid, burn a mixture of sulfur and saltpeter in it, so that the sulfur oxides produced are absorbed by the water sprayed on the four walls, and constantly replenish the saltpeter and sulfur, and then finally take out the acid and put it in a glass container to heat it and concentrate it.
This was only the earlier lead chamber method, the more refined lead chamber process was more complicated and required catalysts and whatnot. But for the Alda chemical industry in its infancy, Paul’s method was sufficient. And he can not get the complete method in one step, one of the increase in the complexity of the experiment and construction (which is the main), and the second Paul does not want to let his alchemists to become a group of people who only know how to mechanically carry out the orders of the dull melon, always have to leave a little space for them to think and improve.
The alchemists were skeptical when they first heard about this method, but if they could produce sulfuric acid efficiently and on a large scale, who wouldn’t be happy to try it. One must know that sulfuric acid was a rather important material in their various experiments.
And there were two reasons why Paul wanted to make sulfuric acid on a large scale.
One was that it could be sold to alchemists elsewhere to make money – guys who practiced this profession tended to be very wealthy.
The second is that sulfuric acid is an important industrial raw material, in the current industries that Arda already has, metallurgy, tanning, paper, pigments, coking may use sulfuric acid, even if it’s not used now because of the primitive technological means, it will definitely be used in the future when it develops in the long run – all of this was verified in the history of the previous life.
But Paul’s most hope is first through the sulfuric acid to create copper sulfate, copper sulfate can be used for tanning, can be used for mineral processing, and also can be sterilized, can be further through it to make early pesticides, such as Bordeaux liquid.
With pesticides, agriculture in the Northwest Gulf could be further developed, and the problem of eating was most important.
The lead chamber method achieved initial success after several experiments.
The alchemists were about to go crazy with joy.
But at the same time, they couldn’t understand how a young man who had never heard of any contact with alchemy could come up with such a brilliant method.
There was also the previous nitrate making method, could it be that he had obtained divine revelation from the God of Light in his sleep?
After the experience of making nitrate and acid, the alchemists most Paul in front of the last trace of arrogance also disappeared without a trace. Now Paul in their eyes is the person of heavenly favor.
The construction plan of a chemical plant is being prepared in a tight schedule. Although in the laboratory to verify the feasibility of the lead chamber method, but to really apply to mass production there are many engineering problems need to be solved.
And must be given more consideration is the safety of the chemical industry, sulfuric acid, needless to say, a very corrosive thing, and Paul expected copper sulfate is also toxic. So the site of the chemical workshop must also be careful again and again, can not be built near the residential area, can not be built next to the River Wise, God knows what other strange contraptions will be produced in the future.
There is also the recruitment and training of workers, the two heads of the alchemists, Hoffman and Wells, both suggested that the students who are studying chemistry at the Vis Academy should be put on top first, after all, they already have a certain amount of experience in chemistry, and know the dangers of various materials and reagents.
Then slowly select and train qualified workers.
Paul knew that this group of alchemists couldn’t wait to see the chemical plant blossom. Of course he also wanted to see the results as soon as possible, so he agreed to the two men’s suggestion after emphasizing the safety principle again and again.
(End of chapter)