Chapter 375: The Most Advanced and Most Suitable
Upon seeing the Crown Prince's eyes gleaming with excitement, Lavoisier hastily explained, "Your Highness, if you only need one or two thousand kilograms of Casein Glue per month, then an investment of 5,000 livres would suffice. But if you're aiming for 50,000 kilograms, then raw materials such as Soda Ash and water glass would become severely scarce. Oh, currently, all the Soda Ash produced around Paris is only enough to make 1,000 kilograms of Casein Glue per month.
"Therefore, you must first invest in a factory to produce Soda Ash, and it would need to be on an extremely huge scale.
"As you know, producing Soda Ash requires building reverberatory furnaces and a sulfuric acid production plant first. This alone would cost at least over 800,000 livres. Plus the production of water glass, purification of slaked lime..."
"Hold on a moment," Joseph interrupted, raising a hand. "You just said that producing Soda Ash requires a reverberatory furnace? If I understood correctly, it's the kind of reverberatory furnace used in steelmaking?"
"That's right, Your Highness." Lavoisier nodded. "You might not be familiar with the latest method for mass-producing Soda Ash.
"That is the method recently invented by Dr. Leblanc. Salt and sulfuric acid are mixed, then distilled, after which limestone and coal are added, and the mixture is placed into a reverberatory furnace to be calcined into a molten state. This process requires temperatures hot enough to melt iron, making the reverberatory furnace perfectly suitable..."
As Lavoisier explained, Joseph finally understood that the mass production of Soda Ash in this era still relied on the calcination and crystallization method.
Just heating it to over 1,000 degrees Celsius would consume enormous amounts of coal. Moreover, at such high temperatures, sulfuric acid was extremely corrosive to the reverberatory furnace, necessitating a replacement every two years. 'It would be strange if the costs weren't sky-high!'
Therefore, Soda Ash was currently a chemical luxury item, the kind sold by the gram!
Joseph immediately recalled, 'Isn't Soda Ash just sodium carbonate?'
It was pure alkali.
As one of the five pillars of the chemical industry, countless chemists had been driven to their wits' end trying to reduce the cost of mass-producing this substance.
He let out a sigh.
'Indeed, all profitable commercial products ultimately depend on the production of the most basic raw materials.'
'Fortunately, thanks to his chemistry major roommate, he hadn't forgotten all his chemistry knowledge.'
'For example, I know Hou's process!'
'Wouldn't that easily crush those "primitive methods" of the late 18th century?'
He hadn't managed to find the time and energy to delve into the chemical industry before, but now was the perfect opportunity to start with Soda Ash.
'A million livres? If it could boost France's chemical industry, that amount of money was a drop in the ocean.'
Not to mention the significant importance of Soda Ash to the furniture revolution and Bulletproof Inserts, even selling it directly would yield a tenfold profit.
Joseph quickly reviewed Hou's process in his mind, then turned to Lavoisier and said, "Actually, I have a new method for producing Soda Ash, and its cost should be less than a tenth of the method you just described."
Lavoisier's eyes widened. If anyone else had said that, he would most likely scoff at it immediately. But coming from the "Son of Divine Favor," he had to consider it seriously.
"Are you, are you serious?"
"Yes, it mainly requires salt, ammonia gas, and carbon dioxide." Joseph didn't conceal it. The venerable "Father of Chemistry" wouldn't stoop to stealing his technique, or rather, wouldn't dare. Besides, he only knew the principles; to implement it into a concrete mass-production process, he still needed Lavoisier's guidance.
"First, ammonia gas is introduced into saturated brine to form ammoniated brine. Then, carbon dioxide is passed into it, producing..."
After he finished explaining Hou's process, he waited for Lavoisier to exclaim in astonishment.
However, after a full half minute, the "Father of Chemistry" frowned and shook his head. "Your Highness, your method is good, but it seems impossible to implement."
Joseph was immediately stunned. 'What? Are you sure you heard me correctly? This is Hou's process!'
Lavoisier continued, "Your method requires a large consumption of ammonia gas. If I'm not mistaken, Sal Ammoniac costs about 7 livres per kilogram. The Soda Ash produced this way wouldn't be much cheaper than Dr. Leblanc's method.
"Most importantly, the supply of Sal Ammoniac in all of Europe would struggle to meet the consumption for producing 50,000 kilograms of Casein Glue per month."
Joseph blinked. "Sal Ammoniac? What is that?"
"It's a mineral used to refine ammonia gas..."
As Lavoisier explained for another long while, Joseph's face darkened. 'Sal Ammoniac must be ammonium chloride. Current chemical technology can't synthesize ammonia gas artificially; it can only be obtained by calcination from this expensive mineral.'
The price was sky-high.
He then remembered, 'It seems the ammonia synthesis process didn't mature until the late 19th century, and Dr. Hou invented his soda production method in the 20th century, by which time ammonia gas was dirt cheap.'
'And synthesizing ammonia gas seems to require ultra-high temperature and high-pressure reaction technology, which was unthinkable in the 18th century.'
'So, all this talk of a chemical industry and a furniture revolution, was it all just his wishful thinking?'
Seeing Joseph's expression change, Lavoisier hurriedly consoled him. "Your Highness, your approach is very novel; it's a method I've never even considered.
"It's just that, sometimes, old methods might still prove effective..."
Joseph smiled bitterly. He hadn't expected Dr. Hou's world-renowned improved soda production method to be unable to compete with a mere reverberatory furnace in the 18th century.
He couldn't help but recall a documentary he had watched about Dr. Hou, detailing how he gradually improved the Solvay process under extremely difficult conditions, eventually achieving success.
Hm?
He suddenly thought of something. 'What was Dr. Hou's improvement again? It seemed to be coupled soda production—producing Soda Ash and fertilizer simultaneously, which improved both output and raw material utilization.'
'How was the Solvay process for soda production done again?'
Joseph frantically recalled the documentary he had watched, muttering softly to himself, 'Salt plus ammonia gas plus carbon dioxide, dissolved in water. Remove the precipitate, add limestone, heat the reaction...
'Ammonia gas and carbon dioxide are generated, and the sintered product contains Soda Ash and calcium chloride, then purified by crystallization...
'This method wastes the chlorine in the salt and the calcium in the limestone, so it's inferior to Hou's process in terms of production efficiency and cost...'
Joseph suddenly paused. 'Wait, during the reaction, both ammonia gas and carbon dioxide precipitated out; they could be recycled into the next reaction!'
'In that case, the consumption of ammonia gas would be very, very small. Although it wouldn't produce fertilizer like Hou's process, it would bypass the natural barrier of ammonia gas.'
'Thank goodness...'
He let out a sudden breath of relief. 'I had truly fallen into a trap, always wanting to jump straight to the most advanced technology. But the most advanced is not necessarily suitable for this era!'
"Monsieur Lavoisier," he smiled again, "if I have another method that doesn't consume ammonia gas, I would appreciate your help in designing the mass production process."
Lavoisier's eyes widened dramatically. 'Had the Crown Prince truly received divine inspiration?!'
'Such cutting-edge technology for soda production, and he had come up with two solutions in less than half an hour!'
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