The excellent performance of the single-cylinder diesel engine aroused great interest from Leonardo da Vinci and the students of the Department of Mechanics. But this is not a good thing, and the downside is that the development of the steam engine has stalled.

Because of the ultra-high speed of the diesel engine, the teachers and students of the Department of Mechanical Engineering are extremely disgusted with the steam engine with a speed of only 50 revolutions per minute. After all, there is no harm without contrast. Then, most of the mechanical college students went to study single-cylinder diesel engines. The steam engine was unexpectedly unpopular for a while, which made Marin, who learned the news, very depressed.

Marin also knows the superiority of diesel engines, but the supply of diesel fuel is seriously insufficient! Until the development of science and technology, especially drilling technology, to a certain level, the supply of diesel fuel cannot be sufficient.

You must know that those oil fields in later generations are often hundreds of meters deep, or even thousands of meters deep. And the current technology, which can drill more than 100 meters deep at most, simply cannot supply enough diesel. In particular, some rock formations cannot be drilled through without the high-strength drill bits of later generations.

So, even if you can make a single-cylinder diesel engine, what can you do? Without oil, the diesel engine is just a lump of scrap metal......

The steam engine, on the other hand, burns coal. And Marin, who controls the Ruhr area and the Newcastle coalfield, has no shortage of coal. In addition, the difficulty of obtaining coal is low all over the world.

Therefore, even if we know that the diesel engine is better, the steam engine is the easiest to promote. As a result, Marin had to adjust his strategy and began to stimulate Leonardo da Vinci and his students to develop a steam engine.

Marin promised that those who made significant research results in steam engines would be rewarded 10 times more than those who studied diesel engines. The specific criteria are that the diesel engine research results are rewarded with 10 gold coins, while the steam engine research results are rewarded with 100 gold coins!

10 gold coins is less than the average person's annual salary (12.16 gold coins), although it is a lot, but it is not much. And 100 gold coins is equivalent to more than 8.2 times the annual salary of ordinary people. If an ordinary person is the basic salary of 3,000 per month in later generations, 12 gold coins is equivalent to 36,000. And 100 gold coins is almost equivalent to 300,000 soft girl coins......

A stage of ordinary research results will be rewarded with 300,000 yuan, this standard, put in the future generations, those professors will also be tempted......

And Marin even promised - if anyone can successfully get a steam engine on board, or successfully make a practical steam engine train, the reward is 1000 gold coins, and there is no upper limit......

In other words, Marin's reward for steam engine ships and steam locomotives starts at 3 million, which can be described as very generous......

For diesel engines with higher technical content, Marlin has cut 10 times the reward, and the ordinary reward is only about 30,000 yuan in later generations. For engineers and technicians who are already well-paid, it is really not attractive......

After the stimulation of this means, sure enough, most of the students in the mechanical department went to study the steam engine. However, there are also a small number of pure scholar-type college students who don't care about rewards, and they are determined to continue to develop diesel engines. Marin was not disappointed either. After all, one day, diesel opportunities will go mainstream. At present, the proportion of most people studying steam engines and a small number of people studying diesel engines happens to be what Marlin wants to see the most.

However, for the diesel engine with excellent performance cannot be applied on a large scale, Marin is also unwilling. Then, he suddenly thought of biodiesel technology, which is very popular in the 21st century.

The so-called biodiesel is the esterification reaction of vegetable oil and alcohols (mainly methanol, but also ethanol) in an alkaline environment at high temperature to obtain biodiesel with combustion performance very similar to diesel.

Biodiesel is environmentally friendly, sulfur-free, and does not pollute the air, which is a key research direction in the 21st century. However, because the price of vegetable oil in later generations is more expensive and the cost is higher than that of ordinary diesel, it has been difficult to make a big breakthrough.

Marin remembers watching an episode of an agricultural show about a plant called jatropha. The oil squeezed from its fruit is easily processed into biodiesel, and the quality is quite good, better than the quality of domestic No. 0 diesel.

It is said that this jatropha tree is native to the tropical regions of southern North America, and the fruit is poisonous, and can make people dizzy, vomiting, and diarrhea after eating. However, the fruit has a high oil yield and is suitable for processing into biodiesel.

In fact, jatropha is the American version of tung oil, and its characteristics are very similar to those of tung oil, and the oil extraction from the fruit is also somewhat similar to tung oil.

Moreover, tung oil can actually be made into biodiesel. Marlin has seen reports in his previous life, and it seems that tung oil and methanol are used for esterification reaction, and the reaction is carried out in a strong alkaline environment of potassium hydroxide for N hours......

However, the focus on the TV is on the jatropha tree, but not the tung oil tree, which shows that the jatropha tree must have the advantage of being a source of raw materials for biodiesel.

In fact, the processing of tung oil into biodiesel is not much worse than that of jatropha tree. But the problem is that tung trees have high environmental requirements and only grow well in southern China.

Later, oil barrels were introduced to the United States and Paraguay and Argentina in South America, but the result was that the oil barrels did not grow well in the southern part of the United States, and the quality of tung oil produced was poor. In the environment of South America, the quality of tung oil produced in Paraguay is okay, but it is not as good as the tung oil produced in China.

And the reason why jatropha is promoted on television is because of its strong adaptability. According to the TV program, jatropha does not have high requirements for the soil environment, and is also very resistant to pests and diseases, and has strong adaptability. I'm afraid that's the main reason why it's being so promoted.

Anyway, Marlin remembers that the oil extracted from the jatropha fruit is esterified with methanol or ethanol under KOH and high temperatures. As for how many hours the reaction takes, what the ratio is, and how to remove the lye later, he does not know. After all, he is not a professional chemical worker.

However, knowing this, it is easy to do here. Anyway, as long as the raw materials are sufficient, try a few more times, or even, try hundreds of times or thousands of times, you can always try out the ratio and reaction time, as well as the purification methods later.

Anyway, now Leonardo da Vinci has taught a group of chemical engineering students. When there are more chemical students in the future, I will divide a group to specialize in this, and I will always find a way.

According to the TV program in the previous life, the oil extracted from the fruit of the jatropha tree in one acre of land can produce 500 kilograms of biodiesel, that is, half a ton.

If he planted his 10,000 acres of jatropha trees, the annual output of diesel would be 5,000 tons! A 12-horsepower single-cylinder diesel engine only consumes two or three liters of diesel per hour, and even if it doesn't stop for a moment, it only consumes about 26,000 liters in a year. And the density of zero diesel is in the form of 0.85 kg per liter. That is to say, a 12-horsepower diesel engine runs at full power all year round, and only consumes about 22 tons of diesel. But in fact, the general single-cylinder diesel engine consumes three or five tons of diesel a year.

In this way, the biodiesel produced by 10,000 acres of jatropha can supply thousands of diesel engines for one year. If biodiesel production is increased by a factor of 100......

Although in later generations, biodiesel is more expensive and not very cost-effective. But for Marin in this era, whether there is or not is the most important question. As for the cost, it is secondary.

Even, Marin came up with an exaggerated scene of using a hand-held tractor formation to storm the enemy position. Of course, first of all, he had to have a team of professional mechanics to put the single-cylinder diesel engine on the car and make a rotten agricultural vehicle similar to the "four dislikes" of later generations. Then, wrapped in iron sheets, it can be used as a turtle tank......

Thinking of this, Marin's saliva was going to stay. Even if it is the "four dislikes" used in agriculture in later generations, in this era, it is enough to crush any battle formation of the enemy......

However, after sobering up, Marin understood that if he wanted to make a "chariot" like the "four dislikes", he had to cultivate a qualified mechanical type first. And Leonardo da Vinci and his mechanical students are left in the afterlife, and they are far inferior to even mechanical apprentices. So, there is still a long way to go......

But if the "four dislikes" are studied, and the production of biodiesel is sufficient, it is estimated that the whole world will be shrouded in the shadow of the tractor and combat vehicles of the North Sea country. Thousands of tractors are coming at you and asking if you are afraid?

……

Of course, that's just a bright prospect for the future. First of all, to achieve that kind of bright future, Marin needs to send someone to find the jatropha tree first. Although it is known that in the southern part of North America, it is very difficult to find the special meow.

Then, even if you find a jatropha tree, it will take years to plant it before it bears fruit. Then the oil from the fruit is squeezed out, and then used for the study of esterification reaction by chemical engineers...... In short, it will take a long, long time, estimated to take decades, and maybe Marin will not be able to see it alive......

But in any case, jatropha has given Marlin a bright future for biodiesel, and a better prospect for tractors to dominate the world in the future. So, no matter what the cost, Marin intends to find it......