Chapter 6: Alchemy is a skill

Back at home, Chen Siwei carefully placed the distillation kettle he had just bought, and ordered someone to guard the door strictly and not let anyone in. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 info The little fat man had already sent seven truckloads of ore slag over, and the family paid him fifteen copper plates in one cart according to Chen Siwei's instructions.

Everything is ready, and the east wind is not bad. Chen Siwei looked at the sun in the west, and it was dusk so soon. There is still a whole day tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, He Yushi, who is disgusting, will come to the door to urge the delivery of red copper.

The corners of Chen Siwei's mouth were slightly raised, and he secretly said in his heart, "God let me cross over at this time, probably just to let me save the Chen family, right?" ’。

Chen Siwei ordered all the rooms in the mansion to be lit up, if it was only in his room, wouldn't it tell everyone that he was here?

Tonight, all the families and nurses will be divided into two groups, one group will be responsible for patrolling in the first half of the night, and the other group will be responsible for patrolling in the second half of the night.

Everyone felt that these were the last two nights to stay in the house, and they all said that they must stand at their posts, which was quite a bit of a crowd of emotions.

Chen Siwei smiled faintly, this is obviously unbelievable to him, no one believes that he can get eighty catties of red copper.

The room where the distillation kettle was placed was in the northwest corner of the extremely remote area, which was far away from any gate of the Hou Mansion, and there were guards guarding outside the gate, so Chen Siwei deliberately chose this place.

Of course, Chen Siwei didn't go to the pharmacy to buy common medicines, common medicines were just a trick to deceive the person to eat. 's Mishi-sama's.

He bought a large amount of green alum, and almost all the green alum in Bianliang City was bought by him. The green alum was all on him and Steward Xu, and the four guards were carrying common medicines.

Green alum is a traditional Chinese medicine, which has the effects of nourishing blood and eliminating accumulation, detoxifying sores, drying dampness and killing insects, which is a well-known thing.

What no one knows, or what no one knows in this era of the Great Song Dynasty, is that the main ingredient of alum is ferrous sulfate.

What happened to ferrous sulfate?

When ferrous sulphate is heated to more than 500 degrees Celsius, ferrous sulphate becomes iron oxide, sulphur dioxide, sulphur trioxide and water.

What's wrong with that?

Sulfur trioxide plus water will turn into sulfuric acid, so sulfuric acid is also called alum oil.

No one in the Great Song Dynasty knew anything about chemistry, but it wasn't that no one knew about it. The pharmacopoeia records that 'green alum is poisoned by fire', and everyone knows that green alum will be poisoned after being heated by fire, and the poison here mainly refers to sulfuric acid.

What is sulfuric acid used for?

Dilute sulfuric acid plus copper oxide will cause a chemical reaction and will become a mixed solution formed by copper sulfate and water. The addition of iron or zinc to this solution can replace the copper in the copper sulfate, and the replaced copper is the purest red copper.

Where is copper oxide?

Copper oxide is mainly used in glass, color glaze, ceramics and other fields in modern society, that is to say, most of the mines that can mine porcelain stone are associated minerals containing copper oxide.

Chen Siwei expected that the ore slag contained copper oxide, but he was not sure how much it contained, so he asked the little fat man to send as much as he could, anyway, there was a place in Houfu.

There is an easier way to replace copper from copper oxide, which is to heat copper oxide and carbon together. In this way, copper can be obtained directly, the method is simple and effective, there is no danger to the environment and no pollution.

Heating green alum to refine sulfuric acid is dangerous, sulfur dioxide is easy to explode when heated in the container, and there is a pungent odor in the air, and it will combine with oxygen in the air to quickly form sulfuric acid, which is the cause of acid rain.

Of course, a large amount of sulfur dioxide is required to form acid rain, and Chen Siwei is still fine with this little thing, but the smell is unpleasant.

As for the danger, Chen Siwei can't care about it, he can't even save his life if he can't get the red copper, what danger are he afraid of?

Why not heat the ore slag with carbon to replace the copper? Because the temperature cannot be reached, the melting point of copper oxide is 1,326 degrees Celsius.

Chen Siwei also thought that he could do this at first, he knew that iron tools were already ordinary things. The melting point of iron is 1,535 degrees Celsius, which means that the temperature at which iron can be melted is enough to melt copper oxide.

He went to the blacksmith shop and asked, and it turned out that it was not necessary to burn the iron into molten iron, but only to burn it red and soften it and then change its shape by smashing it with a sledgehammer.

It's not the kind of iron he imagined that he poured into molten iron into a mold to set the shape, and it seems that the temperature is not up to standard. Chen Siwei didn't have time to think of a way to raise the temperature of the blacksmith furnace now, but fortunately he still knew how to replace it with dilute sulfuric acid.

Chen Siwei put the green alum in the distillation kettle and calcined, slowly flowing out the oily liquid, releasing a pungent gas, and the solid in the distillation kettle slowly turned red.

The oily liquid is alum oil, that is, sulfuric acid, and Chen Siwei packed it in a ceramic bottle. The irritating smell gas is naturally sulfur dioxide floating out, and the solid that turns red is iron oxide.

got the sulfuric acid, Chen Siwei was overjoyed, now it depends on whether the ore slag contains copper oxide, if there is it, it is the road to heaven, if not, then you can only accept your fate.

Sulfuric acid is extremely corrosive, except for ceramic glass, only gold, silver, and copper will not be corroded. Chen Siwei took out the largest silver pot in Houfu and poured half a pot of ore slag into it.

He pretended to be calm and took three deep breaths, secretly encouraging himself, "Don't be nervous, don't be nervous, you will definitely succeed, you will!" ’。

He diluted the sulfuric acid he had just obtained and sprinkled it on the ore slag, and after a clicking sound, the volume of the ore slag in the pot became significantly smaller, and a blue solution gradually appeared at the bottom of the pot.

Chen Siwei clenched his fists, he really wanted to let out a long roar, and he succeeded! The blue solution is copper sulfate and water, and as long as iron is added to this solution, red copper and ferrous sulfate can be obtained.

Of course, copper can also be replaced with zinc, so that zinc sulfate and copper will be obtained. Chen Siwei wants zinc sulfate is useless, ferrous sulfate is useful, ferrous sulfate is green. Moreover, zinc is not easy to obtain, and zinc is a scarce item like red copper.

The Great Song Dynasty used red copper and zinc to make brass, and used brass to mint copper coins, because these two things were scarce and not easy to counterfeit.

Chen Siwei poured iron powder into the pot, and the black iron powder immediately turned into a red solid, which is the red copper that saves people's lives! The blue solution also turned light green, and the green gradually deepened, and slowly crystallized into green alum.

The red copper is there, and the green alum is back, it's like a trick, it's a game of nothing. If there is alum, there is no worry about sulfuric acid, which is diluted and poured on the ore slag, and then as long as there is enough iron, not only can red copper be harvested, but also a large amount of alum.

Chen Siwei was ecstatic, eighty catties of red copper? Prepare the scales for you!