182: Chapter 182 Mining Oil Beyond the Territory of the Qin Empire

"sulfates?"

"aniline?"

"potassium dichromate, a strong oxidizing agent?"

Zhao Fusu's face was a complete question mark.

The only thing he knew about was alcohol!

He could only laboriously study the chemical engineering knowledge.

"sulfates are compounds composed of sulfate ions and other metal ions or ammonium ions."

"Common sulfates include calcium sulfate: in nature, calcium sulfate exists in the forms of gypsum and anhydrite."

"gypsum can be used for building materials, such as making gypsum board and gypsum statues; it can also be used in the medical field, such as making plaster bandages. In the food industry, calcium sulfate can be used as a coagulant."

"Right!"

Zhao Fusu suddenly remembered that calcium sulfate was added to wheat gluten.

This stuff was quite easy to get.

He looked up how aniline was produced industrially.

"As an important organic compound, aniline is mainly used in the production of dyes, medicines, and rubber additives."

"The industrial method for aniline is mainly the reduction reaction of nitrobenzene. Common methods include catalytic hydrogenation and iron powder reduction."

The process of catalytic hydrogenation was quite complex, leaving Zhao Fusu with a head full of question marks.

But the iron powder reduction method for nitrobenzene was relatively simple; at least Zhao Fusu could understand it, and it was easier to put into production.

nitrobenzene is reduced to aniline by iron powder under acidic conditions.

The raw materials used are nitrobenzene, excess iron powder, and dilute sulfuric acid. After mixing, they are placed in a reactor. The reaction conditions are a temperature of 90 to 100 degrees Celsius, stirring for six to eight hours until the nitrobenzene is completely converted.

Afterward, lime water is added to neutralize the excess acid, the ferroferric oxide residue is filtered out, and the aniline is separated through steam distillation.

This method of obtaining aniline is low-cost and simple to operate.

However, this is not the mainstream industrial method.

Because the iron powder reduction method is only suitable for laboratories or small-scale production, and it generates a large amount of iron-containing waste residue and acidic wastewater, making it environmentally unfriendly.

The nitrobenzene catalytic hydrogenation method allows for continuous large-scale production, with high reaction efficiency, no solid waste, and water as the only byproduct. It is highly environmentally friendly and suitable for continuous large-scale production.

There are two ways to obtain hydrogen. One is coal-to-hydrogen, where coal is gasified with oxygen and steam at high temperatures to generate synthesis gas containing hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, etc. Then, carbon monoxide is converted into hydrogen and carbon dioxide through a shift reaction, and purified to obtain hydrogen.

This method has a complex process and produces more pollutants.

The other method is natural gas reforming, which is currently one of the main methods for large-scale hydrogen production in industry.

Using natural gas as a raw material, a reforming reaction occurs with steam under high temperature and the action of a catalyst, generating hydrogen and carbon monoxide.

The generated carbon monoxide can further react with steam to produce carbon dioxide and more hydrogen.

With the current conditions of the Great Qin Empire Academy of Sciences, as long as they research it, hydrogen can be obtained.

So, Zhao Fusu studied the nitrobenzene catalytic hydrogenation method again.

After mixing nitrobenzene and hydrogen in proportion, using copper as a catalyst, at a temperature of 200 to 300 degrees Celsius and a pressure of 1 to 5 MPa.

Pa is the unit of atmospheric pressure. A pressure of 5 MPa is equivalent to 50 atmospheres, which is also roughly equivalent to the water pressure at 500 meters underwater.

This is equivalent to a force of 50 kilograms on an area of one square centimeter.

The Great Qin Empire Academy of Sciences now masters several methods for pressurizing gas.

For example, simple piston compression uses the reciprocating motion of a piston in a cylinder to seal a certain amount of air or other gas inside the cylinder.

The principle is the same as a manual air pump.

Additionally, there is centrifugal compression, which relies on a high-speed rotating impeller to do work on the gas.

After the gas enters the impeller, it is thrown toward the edge of the impeller by centrifugal force, increasing the speed and pressure of the gas.

Subsequently, the gas enters components like diffusers, where the speed decreases and the pressure further increases.

With these conditions, he could still use the nitrobenzene catalytic hydrogenation method to obtain the aniline he wanted.

However, he didn't have nitrobenzene, so he had to synthesize nitrobenzene first.

The synthesis of nitrobenzene is usually carried out through the nitration of benzene, which is a classic reaction in organic chemistry.

Benzene undergoes an electrophilic substitution reaction catalyzed by mixed acid—concentrated sulfuric acid and concentrated nitric acid—to produce nitrobenzene.

This electrophilic substitution refers to the nitronium ion attacking the benzene ring to form a σ-complex, followed by the removal of a proton to generate nitrobenzene.

Zhao Fusu didn't quite understand this either.

However, for this kind of chemical engineering stuff, rote memorization was the way to go.

It was essentially a formula discovered by researchers after a massive amount of experiments, succeeding by chance and then figuring it out.

Zhao Fusu continued to work backward; if he had nitrobenzene, he still needed benzene!

Benzene primarily comes from petrochemicals.

The raw material is naphtha.

Zhao Fusu actually had this stuff in his hands.

During the production of kerosene, what was obtained from the sixth layer of the fractionation tower was naphtha, the raw material for making plastics.

Zhao Fusu marveled once again; oil really is a good thing!

There was also crude oil within the territory of the Great Qin Empire, but Zhao Fusu did not plan to drill for it.

He planned to drill for oil outside the territory of the Great Qin Empire.

Once the oil outside the Great Qin Empire's territory was used up, he would then drill for the oil within his own territory.

This could be considered saving up assets for future generations. Even if the nation entered a period of decline after its peak, there would still be domestic oil to use, allowing future generations to smoothly pass through the decline and return to a period of strength.

The direction Zhao Fusu looked for oil was not the Middle East.

Over there were many countries no weaker than Great Qin. With oil being such a useful thing, wouldn't those Western countries be tempted?

It was obviously impossible.

When the time came, those Western countries would unite. Even if he had revolvers and mortars, if the opponent waited at their leisure and was stubborn enough to exhaust his ammunition with human lives, they could still cut off the claws he extended.

If he were to send troops over there, the logistical pressure would be quite high.

Even if he built a railway there, the opponent could destroy the railway just like the Eighth Route Army.

Sending troops to guard the railway would make the cost too high and cause massive casualties.

Other transmigrators might be stubborn and fight with those Western powers.

Zhao Fusu wanted to take advantage of the fact that Western powers had not yet entered the Yindian North Continent and the Indian South Continent to first develop these two areas into an iron fortress.

As everyone knows, Venezuela has proven oil reserves of 296 billion barrels in recent years, becoming the country with the largest proven oil reserves in the world.

This country happens to be in the Indian South Continent!

Currently, the Yindian North Continent and the Indian South Continent only have some natives living in tribes, leading primitive lives of eating raw meat and drinking blood.

These primitive people are much easier to deal with than the Western powers!