388: Chapter 838 Zhao Yang's Thoughts

"Understood." Chen Haifeng replied thoughtfully.

After hanging up the phone, Chen Haifeng went to process the clinical trial procedures, set up the new factory buildings, and order the new production lines.

Zhao Yang's graduate school entrance exam was scheduled for next year; there was still plenty of time.

After all, it was only June, and the exam wasn't until December.

Only those who finished the graduate exam and met the admission requirements for Peking University's major could sign up for Zhao Yang's re-examination.

Zhao Yang wasn't particularly anxious about this.

His main energy was currently focused on researching materials for controlled nuclear fusion.

He had found many books on materials science.

On the Biology side, Zhao Yang was still studying his own genes and blood.

There were still many secrets to his body, which had been enhanced by the system.

SOD-2 was just one of the gene expressions that was relatively easy to isolate.

Aside from working on these two projects, Zhao Yang also incorporated SOD-2 into his own training regimen.

After confirming that this drug had no negative effects on his body, he began taking it regularly, while simultaneously following a specially designed weighted training plan.

The results were better than he had expected.

Previously, his physique value had been stuck at 33 points (88%) for a long time, and conventional exercise methods could barely bring about any growth, but SOD-2 caused this long-stagnant progress bar to start slowly moving forward again.

Although the increase wasn't large and didn't reach the level of improvement seen in ordinary subjects, for a body whose base values were already far beyond the limits of an ordinary person, every small step forward was a significant breakthrough.

During this period, Professor Wu Kai from CATL called him.

The professor sounded a bit embarrassed, saying that the lab was recently working on a project for ternary lithium battery cathode materials and had encountered some computational difficulties.

They had tried several models but couldn't get ideal results, so he wanted to ask Zhao Yang for help.

"Everyone calls me an old expert in batteries, yet I've been stuck on a cathode material simulation for nearly half a month. I'm too embarrassed to even tell my subordinates."

Professor Wu Kai laughed self-deprecatingly on the phone, then his tone turned serious.

"Later, I remembered the manifold mapping dimensionality reduction model you helped us with before; the approach was just brilliant. So, I'm shamelessly coming back to you to see if you could take a look for us."

After listening, Zhao Yang calculated the time and suddenly thought of something.

"Professor Wu, does my position as a specially appointed researcher still hang with you guys?"

"Of course it does! The contract hasn't expired, and the finance department is still paying your monthly salary as usual. Why are you suddenly asking this?"

"It's nothing, I just feel like I've been taking a salary for nearly two years without really doing much for you." Zhao Yang said with a smile.

"The issue you helped us solve regarding the plummeting cycle life of high-nickel materials is worth more than this salary alone. It's just that a big shot of your level doesn't care about money; anyone else would have raised their price long ago."

Professor Wu Kai chuckled a few times, then brought the conversation back to the main point.

"If you can help with this project, I can apply for a special bonus for you."

"There's no need for a bonus. Send the data to my email, and I'll reply to you after I've looked at it."

Professor Wu Kai thanked him repeatedly and added one more thing before hanging up.

"Dr. Zhao, honestly, you have more projects in progress right now than you can count on one hand, right? I'm really touched that you can still find time to help us look at data."

Zhao Yang smiled and didn't say much.

After receiving the data sent by Professor Wu Kai, he spent some time going through the entire simulation model, readjusting the weight distribution of the parameter matrix, and spent some more time organizing the new calculation path to send back.

After receiving it, Professor Wu Kai was both surprised and delighted, thanking him repeatedly over the phone.

Zhao Yang said "you're welcome" and hung up.

But after hanging up, he didn't immediately shift his attention away from this matter.

The battery data from CATL swirled in Zhao Yang's mind, not because the calculation was very complex.

Nor was it because the battery's expected efficiency was so good—quite the contrary!

The energy density of that battery was exaggeratedly low!

At this moment, he suddenly realized a problem.

He had been thinking about controlled nuclear fusion, but the neutron-irradiation-resistant materials and superconducting magnetic confinement systems required for nuclear fusion were simply unattainable given the current level of human industrial systems.

Even if he created them in the lab, when would the production process level catch up?

If he couldn't mass-produce them, would he have to rely on building factories bit by bit himself?

That wasn't realistic! Human society's technology could not be upgraded by just one person or one company!

Therefore, no matter how you look at it, this was a long-term goal, and there was no possibility of landing it in the short term.

Batteries, however, were different.

The upstream and downstream of the current lithium battery industry chain were mature, the factories were ready-made, and the technical routes were clear.

As long as breakthroughs were made at a few key nodes, the entire new energy system could get up and running ahead of schedule.

He remembered very clearly that the reason why new energy vehicles in later generations were able to form an overwhelming trend in the entire market was that there had been a substantive breakthrough in battery technology.

Ternary lithium batteries had high energy density but poor safety; they were prone to catching fire or even exploding after a collision. This flaw was almost innate.

Solid-state batteries had the most ideal performance, but production costs remained high, and mass production processes were far from mature, making the landing time too long to count on in the short term.

Lithium iron phosphate, on the other hand, was the most pragmatic route; BYD later carved out a bloody path relying on this solution.

He had a clear impression in his mind of the specific structure of the blade battery; that was technology BYD only released in 2020.

Calculating the time, it should have taken several more years to appear.

The core idea was to utilize the structural advantage of the long, strip-like lithium iron phosphate battery cells to integrate the cells directly into the battery pack, skipping the intermediate module layer, which could increase volume utilization by several dozen percentage points.

Plus, the thermal stability of lithium iron phosphate itself was far higher than that of ternary lithium, allowing it to easily pass nail penetration tests and crush tests, with safety levels far exceeding the latter.

Zhao Yang picked up his phone and called Chen Haifeng.

"Boss, what's up?"

"Help me acquire a battery lab. It doesn't need to be very large, but the equipment must be complete, and the team must have experience in cell R&D."

Chen Haifeng was visibly stunned for a moment.

"Batteries?"

"Yes. Specifically in the direction of lithium iron phosphate."

After a moment of silence, Chen Haifeng's voice sounded again, without asking any more questions.

"What are your requirements for the lab? What is the budget limit?"

"A team of about twenty people. As for equipment, there must be a cell trial production line and an electrochemical testing platform.

You handle the budget; just don't exceed one-third of the cash flow in our accounts."

"Understood. It just so happens that there seem to be a few small labs in Shenghai making consumer electronic batteries that are looking for buyers. I'll go inquire."

"Go ahead. Let me know once you've negotiated. You just need to get the team and equipment set up; I will personally handle the follow-up with the lab."

After hanging up the phone, Chen Haifeng had already learned one thing: his boss's ability to jump between trains of thought was rare in the world.

He shouldn't try to guess what was on his boss's mind; after all, the boss had once suddenly gone off to work on chips!

Thinking about those things was meaningless; he just needed to execute!

The direction of batteries seemed to have nothing to do with Spark Technology's existing pharmaceutical and chip businesses, but Chen Haifeng didn't ask a single extra question, which pleased Zhao Yang very much.