Hu Laosan is a shriveled middle-aged man who is not good-looking. He was born as a blacksmith, a native of Nanzhili, and was one of the first immigrants of the Ming Dynasty. He came to the East Bank several years ago, first learning how to make steel in the steelmaking workshop (graphite crucible steelmaking) belonging to the Dayuhe Arsenal, and later participated in the first technical transformation of the steelmaking workshop (expanding the smelting chamber and improving the regenerator). His learning ability seems to be good, and his business level has been greatly improved during this time, which has also attracted the favor and attention of his leaders.

When Ping An Iron and Steel Plant was being built, he was favored by the vest and was transferred to the factory. After several years of training, after two terms of factory director, he can be regarded as a veteran of the factory, and now he has mixed to the level of a technician, and he also has a group of apprentices under his hands. Usually, the Iron and Steel Factory Vocational School sometimes asks him to give some lectures, at least in the Ping An Iron and Steel Plant, he is also the number one person.

Seeing Gao Xiaogang asking him for a question, Hu Laosan hurriedly stood up and said, "I asked the coking plant about this question. They can't help it, mainly because the Ping'an Coal Mine has not been able to produce suitable coking coal, resulting in a large sulfur content in the coking plant. After this kind of coke with large sulfur content is sent to the ironmaking workshop, some workers may not have high business quality enough to increase the furnace temperature for desulfurization, so some batches of iron have too high sulfur content and high brittleness. At present, we have strengthened vocational training for employees, and implemented regular assessments, and those who fail to meet the requirements will be demoted. When one day his business ability is improved and he passes the exam, we will bring him back to the post. ”

In fact, when it comes to coking plants, this is also an old and difficult enterprise that has caused the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the Government Affairs Yuan to be extremely troubled and worried. In the beginning. This plant was set up entirely to support the Ping An Iron and Steel Plant, that is, to provide a sufficient amount of coke for ironmaking to the Ping An Iron and Steel Plant. However, later, several technical personnel in the chemical industry put forward the comprehensive utilization of coal tar gas in the coal coking process, that is, to refine and process the coal tar gas produced in the coal dry distillation process by existing technical means, and then use the characteristics of the different boiling points of each component to separate and purify the useful substances, such as asphalt, benzene, aniline, etc. After all, according to the original design, it would be a shame that these coal tar gases were emitted directly into the atmosphere. It can be said that it will not only cause a lot of pollution, but also waste a lot of useful substances in it.

Later, the Government Council listened to their opinions, and then organized a group of second-hand knife technicians who knew almost nothing about the coal chemical industry to start changing the design. Attempts to recover coal tar began using the existing rudimentary technical means and equipment.

However, the process did not go smoothly from the beginning. The gas coming out of the coal retort kiln was originally designed to pass through a flat cast iron pipe to another piece of equipment. However, in this process, a large amount of rapidly condensing asphalt components accumulate in the lower part of the inner wall of the pipeline, causing the pipeline to be blocked. After discovering the problem, the technicians had to change the design again and remove the original pipe. Placed vertically instead. In this way, even if the asphalt condenses, it will fall to the bottom of the pipe due to gravity. At the same time, a movable device was installed at the bottom. Asphalt that has accumulated at the bottom of the pipe is dropped to the next layer at regular intervals so that workers can collect it.

After the problem of collecting the simplest asphalt was solved, these people began to recover other important components of coal tar gas (benzene, aniline, etc.) according to the boiling point. It's just that the process is extremely complicated. Although the technicians have perfectly used distillation crystallization to separate asphalt, benzene, aniline and other components under laboratory conditions, they have repeatedly failed to achieve large-scale industrial production.

First of all, the mercury thermometer made by Henan Glass Factory was inaccurate, which wasted a lot of time and energy. Later, after the problem of the thermometer was solved, because of the arrangement and design of the pipeline, we struggled for a long time, and finally reluctantly condensed and collected from high to low according to the different boiling points of each component, and took secondary heating in the actual collection to better extract each component.

The material components obtained after collection are generally relatively mixed, and the subsequent purification and removal of impurities is also a headache, and the technicians have still not come up with a convincing plan for everyone. There are many proposals put forward by everyone, but they are limited by the existing technical conditions and material foundation, and there are various shortcomings.

The latter question is the most intractable. At present, both gas pipelines and condensing equipment, due to their large size, are cast iron pipes and equipment cast as a whole. Due to the lack of anti-corrosion measures, coal tar gas is more seriously corrosive to these pipelines and equipment. In other words, if the problem of corrosion protection cannot be effectively solved, the service life of these pipes and equipment will be greatly shortened. When the equipment needs to be replaced due to severe corrosion, it is not only time-consuming and laborious, but also quite cost-effective from an economic point of view.

So later some people suggested whether to use ceramic pipes and equipment, but then the problem came again, there are no people who can fire ceramics in the crowd, and it is a very large ceramic equipment, this problem seems to be only possible to solve after some craftsmen who fire ceramics from Daming come over in the future.

After distillation and purification, the residual gas (the main component is crude gas) is transported to the boiler rooms of nearby enterprises such as Ping An Iron and Steel Plant, No. 1 Machinery Factory, and North Arsenal through medium-distance pipelines, so as to provide them with a high-quality fuel when burning boilers.

All in all, the extraction of various important components in coal tar is still in the initial stage of coking plant, although the extracted various components can be barely used, it has to be said that it is not very pure, and the technology is still relatively rough and primitive, which still needs further research and improvement. Moreover, the progress of research and utilization of various components in coal tar is also very slow, and only one industrial use of dyes has been studied.

The superiors are certainly not very satisfied with the progress they have made so far. Therefore, at the beginning of this year, the Coal Chemical Industry Department of the Institute of Chemistry of the Academy of Natural Sciences set up a coal tar department under the instruction of the Government Affairs Yuan, and transferred some old qualified researchers, supplemented by some high school graduates who were considered trustworthy after a long-term investigation, to carry out deep processing research on benzene, aniline and other substances, the main components of coal tar, under the conditions of the laboratory, and strive to make a breakthrough as soon as possible.

Of course, these research projects are still in their infancy, and it is estimated that it will not be possible to produce results in a few years. As one of the few chemical raw materials that can be obtained on a large scale in the East Coast Republic (the other is potassium nitrate obtained by the local method), it would be a pity not to squeeze all its value out and eat it up.

With the topic out of the way, let's turn our attention back to the conference room of Ping An Iron and Steel Plant.

Hearing Hu Laosan say this, Gao Xiaogang thought about it before saying: "The lack of suitable coking coal is a matter of national conditions, and we can't be too demanding." Therefore, how to do a good job of desulfurization in ironmaking under the condition of the coke currently used is what we will focus on. Recently, I found a way to get the Changshanbao iron ore mine to go on a project, and the iron ore that is to be mined will be calcined first to remove the crystal water and some sulfur in it. I think it would be very good, at least it will increase the grade of the iron ore and reduce the sulphur content. Of course, that's a story for later, so let's leave it at that. ”

"The last problem is about the coarse size of iron ore particles." Gao Xiaogang groaned slightly, and then said, "This problem has now begun to be solved. I sent Deputy Director Zhong to find Director Qi of the Changshan Mining Bureau, asking them to strengthen quality management and strictly prohibit the export of unqualified iron ore. Of course, we also need to strengthen our own management and conduct strict and multiple sampling inspections on the transported iron ore to ensure that the particles are within the scope of our requirements. Li Ming, you are responsible for this matter, don't give me any more trouble. Your ore quality control department made a mess a while ago, and if there is another problem this time, you are ready to be pushed to the end to go to the steam workshop to burn the boiler. ”

"I see." Li Mingcheng nodded in fear and said. He was also one of the first immigrants from the Ming Dynasty, a blacksmith and now a technician in the iron-making workshop.

After saying a few things, Gao Xiaogang turned to his secretary and said, "Secretary Shen, you will carefully sort out a copy of the meeting minutes in a while, then print them out, and hand them over to all the technical personnel of the third level and above in the factory to study and discuss." In addition, I ask everyone to work together and put forward more good suggestions about production, if the suggestions have some value, I will not be stingy with rewards. Okay, now that the meeting is adjourned, let's all go back to our jobs. ”

When the people in the conference room heard this, they immediately began to pack up their notebooks, and then walked out of the conference room one after another. Gao Xiaogang sat silently on the chair, looking at the roof, but his thoughts were already slowly drifting: the steel mill is the basic sector of the national economy, and every move involves all aspects of the national industrial system, and there is no room for sloppiness. The position of director of Ping An Iron and Steel Plant, if he does not do well, he will naturally be scolded by thousands of people; But once you do a good job, it is very easy to make political achievements, because the leaders of the central government have been staring at this side.

After all, steel is the foundation of a country's industry. Doing a good job in the iron and steel industry is the top priority of stabilizing the country's industrial base. (To be continued......)