Chapter 81 First Failure

The Pilot-scale production run was scheduled for nine o'clock in the morning.

Chen Xueming had been up since four in the morning.

He used a flashlight to inspect the entire device from start to finish—the seals of the reaction kettle, the liquid level gauge of the separation tower, the bolt torque of every flange—confirming everything three times before returning to the Prefabricated Building at six o'clock to gnaw on a cold steamed bun.

Li Xiao looked at his sallow, exhausted face, wanting to persuade him to rest but not daring to.

Lin Mo had returned to the base last night to handle other matters and had promised to be back before nine.

Chen Xueming stood next to the device, checking his watch repeatedly.

At 8:45, Lin Mo's car appeared on the horizon, kicking up yellow sand.

Chen Xueming went up to greet him: "Everything is ready."

Lin Mo nodded without saying much and followed him to the control console.

Zhang Zhe sat at the operating position, his fingers hovering above the start button.

Li Xiao held a tablet, her eyes fixed on the real-time data stream.

Several security soldiers were scattered around, and Captain Zhou stood at a high vantage point, keeping watch with binoculars.

"Start," Lin Mo said.

Chen Xueming took a deep breath and nodded at Zhang Zhe.

Startup.

The pump roared to life, and the simulated seawater solution flowed from the storage tank into the pipes, heading towards the first reaction kettle.

The needle on the pressure gauge rose slowly, and the temperature curve began to climb.

Li Xiao stared at the screen, muttering: "Feed is normal, temperature is stable, pressure is normal..."

Everything looked smooth.

Yet, Chen Xueming's palms were sweating.

The core logic of this device was to adsorb lithium ions from seawater and then enrich them through a special elution solution.

During the laboratory stage, it had run over a hundred times with perfect data.

But from small-scale to Pilot-scale production, the equipment had been scaled up a hundred times, changing the fluid dynamics characteristics completely—mass transfer efficiency, residence time, concentration distribution—every parameter needed to be re-verified.

Three minutes later, the first reaction kettle began to transport the intermediate liquid to the second one.

"Second-stage reactor feed is normal," Li Xiao reported, "Lithium concentration is within the expected range."

Chen Xueming breathed a slight sigh of relief.

The hardest part was the third-stage reactor—that was where the final enrichment would happen, raising the lithium ion concentration from the ppm level to an industrially extractable level.

He had run it countless times in the laboratory, with yields stable at over 90%.

But in the Pilot-scale production device, the pipes were longer, the flow rate was faster, and the residence time was harder to control—

"Third-stage reactor feed," Li Xiao's voice tightened.

Chen Xueming stared at the screen.

The lithium concentration numbers were jumping: 0.8 ppm—1.2 ppm—1.5 ppm—

Something was wrong.

It should have been rising steadily.

The numbers suddenly began to drop: 1.3 ppm—0.9 ppm—0.6 ppm—

"Pressure fluctuation!" Zhang Zhe shouted. "The inlet pressure of the third-stage reactor is dropping!"

Chen Xueming rushed over to look at the dashboard.

The needle was trembling, the amplitude growing larger and larger.

Countless possibilities flashed through his mind—blockage before the pump? Valve failure? Pipeline leak?

"Shut down!" he roared. "Shut it down quickly!"

Zhang Zhe pressed the emergency stop button.

The roaring sound gradually died down, and the device fell into a deathly silence.

Chen Xueming was already running toward the third-stage reactor.

Lin Mo followed closely behind.

There was no visible abnormality on the outside of the reaction kettle, but on the inlet pipe, a pressure gauge had burst, with glass fragments scattered everywhere.

Chen Xueming crouched down, his hands trembling as he reached to touch the pipe connection.

It was cold.

That wasn't right; it should have been hot.

The third-stage reactor needed to be heated to sixty degrees.

He stood up and walked around to the back of the reaction kettle.

Then, he froze.

The stainless steel pipe connecting the reaction kettle and the eluent storage tank had a large bulge in the middle, like a snake that had swallowed prey.

The metal surface was covered in fine cracks, and a wisp of white steam was emerging from the fissures.

"Heat exchange failure..." he muttered. "Local overheating... thermal stress deformation..."

Lin Mo stood behind him, silently watching the deformed pipe.

Li Xiao and Zhang Zhe also ran over.

Li Xiao covered her mouth, and Zhang Zhe's face turned pale.

Chen Xueming slowly crouched down, his hand pressing against the ruptured pipe.

The metal was still hot, but he felt a chill throughout his body.

He hadn't slept for three days and three nights, had checked every detail three times, and yet something had still gone wrong.

"It's my fault," his voice was hoarse. "The heat exchanger selection... I should have insisted on using thicker pipe walls... laboratory data said the heat load was sufficient, but after scaling up, the flow rate changed, the residence time changed, and the actual heat flux exceeded the design limit..."

Lin Mo didn't speak.

Chen Xueming stood up, looking at the deformed pipe, his eyes reddening.

"This device... the core components are damaged; it will take at least a week to repair," he said in a voice so low it sounded like he was talking to himself. "A week... we only have three months..."

Li Xiao couldn't help but say: "Teacher Chen, this isn't your fault, the scaling process is inherently..."

"How is it not my fault?" Chen Xueming turned his head sharply to look at her, his eyes bloodshot. "I am the technical lead! I signed off on every parameter! Now something has gone wrong; if not me, then whose fault is it?"

Li Xiao was stunned by his shouting and stepped back half a step.

Lin Mo finally spoke: "Don't be in such a rush to assign blame. Zhang Zhe, take photos of the damage and record all the data. Li Xiao, pull out all the parameter curves from the trial run and look for anomalies."

Zhang Zhe and Li Xiao were relieved and hurried to get to work.

Chen Xueming stood in place, staring at the ruptured pipe, motionless.

Lin Mo walked over and stood beside him.

"Teacher Chen."

Chen Xueming didn't react.

"Chen Xueming."

He slowly turned his head, looking at Lin Mo, his lips moving, but no words came out.

Lin Mo looked at his face—he hadn't shaved in three days, his eyes were sunken, his lips were dry and peeling, and the whole person seemed hollowed out.

"Come with me," Lin Mo said.

He turned and walked toward the Prefabricated Building.

Chen Xueming hesitated for a few seconds, then followed.

Inside the Prefabricated Building, Lin Mo poured two glasses of water and handed one to him.

"Drink."

Chen Xueming took the glass but didn't drink, just holding it in a daze.

Lin Mo sat down in front of his own glass of water, was silent for a few seconds, and then spoke.

"Do you know what my mentor told me when my first experiment failed?"

Chen Xueming didn't answer.

"He said that people in materials science have to experience countless failures in their lifetime. It's not because we are stupid, but because materials are just too complex—temperature, pressure, flow rate, concentration, every variable is affecting the others. Running it in the laboratory and then crashing during scale-up is the norm. If someone hasn't crashed, it means they haven't done any real work."

Chen Xueming looked up at him.

Lin Mo continued: "He also said that failure is not terrible; what is terrible is not daring to admit failure, not daring to face failure, and not daring to learn from failure."

Chen Xueming opened his mouth, his voice hoarse: "But this is a military order... I said three months..."

"A military order isn't for you to carry alone," Lin Mo interrupted him. "We are a team. If you have a problem, everyone thinks of a solution together. If you collapse, this project is truly finished."

Chen Xueming looked at him, his eyes reddening again.

"But I really... I checked three times... every weld, every bolt... I thought it was foolproof..."

Lin Mo patted his shoulder.

"I know. So this is not a problem of inadequate supervision, but a problem with the design itself. There is a gap between laboratory data and engineering practice, and we underestimated it before. Now that this gap has been exposed, we can fill it."

Chen Xueming lowered his head and covered his face with his hands.

There was silence for a full minute.

Then he took a deep breath, lowered his hands, and looked at Lin Mo.

"Give me three days," he said. "Within three days, I will redesign the heat exchange system, use more conservative parameters, and install redundant protection."

Lin Mo looked at him, the corners of his mouth slightly raised.

"It's not giving you three days. It's giving us three days."

Chen Xueming was stunned for a moment, then nodded.

Outside the Prefabricated Building, Zhang Zhe and Li Xiao were taking photos and recording. Captain Zhou was leading the soldiers to clean up the shattered instruments. The sun over the Gobi Desert had risen to mid-sky, scorching the sandy ground.

Chen Xueming stood up and walked out.

When he reached the door, he suddenly stopped and looked back at Lin Mo.

"Lin Mo, thank you."

Lin Mo waved his hand.

Chen Xueming pushed the door open and walked out, striding toward the ruptured pipe.

He crouched down, his fingers gently brushing over those fine cracks; the bloodshot eyes were still there, but they were no longer the desperate void from just a moment ago.

Instead, he was calculating.

Thinking.

Designing.

In the distance, on that sand ridge, something flashed.

Captain Zhou immediately raised his binoculars.

That off-road vehicle had appeared again.

He frowned and picked up his walkie-talkie.