At NTU, in his office, Xu Chuan received the head of the chemistry department at Princeton who had come from afar.

"Welcome, Director McGmillan." Xu Chuan warmly shook hands with the middle-aged man with square-rimmed black glasses.

If you want to talk about acquaintance, the two actually know each other, but if they meet, it is the first time in their lives. As for his previous life, because of his involvement in materials science, he had communicated with Director McGmillan several times.

I have to say that in the field of materials chemistry, Magmillan's strength is indeed among the top in the world.

In 2021, two years later, the chair of Princeton's chemistry department will be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on 'asymmetric organocatalysis'.

This achievement has greatly promoted the development of chemical catalysis technology, especially in the field of biomedicine, and has contributed great achievements, using various drugs prepared by this technology, saving countless patients.

What's more, he is still young, he was born in 1968 and is only in his fifties this year, and he was not more than 55 years old when he won the Nobel Prize.

"Xu, it's nice to meet you, you look a lot younger than those photos on the news, are you really only twenty-three years old? It's unbelievable that they're younger than most of the students I've trained. ”

David McGmillan shook his hand and looked Xu Chuan up and down, exclaiming in surprise.

Xu Chuan smiled and said, "Thank you." Sit down and have some tea or coffee? ”

"Do as the locals say, right? Let's have a cup of tea, and let me try what kind of magic is in the things that all Chinese people love to drink. McGmillan laughed.

Xu Chuan smiled and said while getting up to make tea: "Of course, drinking tea has many benefits, it is rich in catechins, cholesterones, caffeine, and inositol. and other beneficial elements to the human body, which can lower blood pressure, lose weight, detoxify, reduce cardiovascular disease and so on. ”

"Most importantly, for researchers like us, it can refresh our minds, improve the efficiency of our brains, and keep us focused in the scientific research process."

With an interested look on her face, McGmillan smiled, "I can't wait to try it." ”

The daily work of researchers is quite brain-draining, which is why many researchers are bald at a young age. Something that can keep the brain awake and improve the efficiency of the brain is still very helpful for them.

If there is really the effect that Professor Xu said, he may be able to study the chemicals in that tea and see if he can refine it.

After serving two cups of tea, the two exchanged pleasantries and got to the point.

"Xu, I'm very interested in the computational mathematical model of the chemical materials you mentioned, I don't know when it's convenient, I can go to the materials research institute under your name to have a look?"

Holding the teacup and chatting for a while, McGmillan asked eagerly.

Xu Chuan smiled and said, "You can do it at any time, but you came from afar and took dozens of hours on the plane, do you want to take a rest first?" ”

David McGmillan quickly shook his head and said, "No, I'm more looking forward to the model you built than tired, and if it can really do what you say, I'll try my best to convince Christopher Isgrub." ”

Christopher Isgrub is Princeton's president and a member of the board of trustees, and with his support, the partnership is a solid one.

Xu Chuan nodded, drank the tea in the cup in one gulp, and said with a smile: "Then we can set off now." ”

With the impatient head of the Department of Chemistry, Xu Chuan rushed to the Chuanhai Materials Research Institute, and after making a phone call, after a while, the burly and majestic senior brother Fan Pengyue quickly rushed over.

"This is David McGmillen, the head of the chemistry department at Princeton, and this is Fan Pengyue, the director of the Chuanhai Materials Research Institute."

While walking towards the laboratory, Xu Chuan briefly introduced each other and asked, "Senior Brother Fan, is there any update or patch for the calculation model of chemical materials today?" ”

An initially rudimentary model, updates are common.

And because of the need to fill in the key information data of various basic materials and the reason for the test update, the update speed of the chemical material calculation model is quite frequent, almost two or three times a week.

Fan Pengyue: "There are no plans for an update today, but if you want to simulate, I recommend using the previous version of the model." ”

"Two days ago, Yu Zhen integrated part of the data of silicon-based materials, but the latest version of the simulation test found that the process was somewhat unstable, and the simulated reaction was deviated from the actual experimental reaction, and it was still being debugged."

Xu Chuan nodded and said, "Okay." ”

On the second floor of the laboratory, a group of people came to the office dedicated to modeling, which was not very large. On the one hand, the preliminary work was not too big, and on the other hand, Xu Chuan did not have much money to expand the laboratory before.

In the past, the money he got from brushing papers and winning awards was basically invested in the research institute.

Fortunately, the licensing fee for the artificial SEI film has already arrived, and now they can move in when the new office address is processed.

In the office, Fan Pengyue called out to a programmer ape who was busy testing the model, and with his help, a backup of the old version of the mathematical model was opened on the computer.

Looking at the mathematical model in the hands of the programmer ape, introducing the corresponding functions, McGmillan asked, "Can you simulate the development process of materials?" ”

Xu Chuan nodded and said, "Yes, but the current model has only been developed and processed for a long time, and there are not many functions, so it can only analyze and combine the materials already in the database, as well as carry out some material simulation work used in the early days." ”

"At present, there are not many simulated materials, mainly lithium, carbon, fluorine, these synthetic materials, and for the time being, certain conditions need to be artificially given."

"Lithium batteries should be within your data range, right?" McGmillan asked.

Xu Chuan nodded and said, "Most of the materials for lithium batteries are there, and these have been sorted out before." However, it does not contain organic solvents at present, after all, there are too many types, and it will not be processed for a while. ”

"Is there any data on the carbon aluminum foil coating of the conductive coating, can I do a simulation of the carbon aluminum coating?"

After thinking about it, Magmillan asked about picking one of the materials from the lithium battery.

Carbon aluminum coating material is important and important in lithium batteries, and it is not important to say that it is not important, it is a new technology that has only appeared in the last two years.

It mainly uses carbon-aluminum functional coating to treat the surface of the battery conductive substrate to provide excellent static conductivity and collect the microcurrent of the active substance, so as to greatly reduce the contact resistance between the positive/negative electrode material and the collector.

It can improve the performance of lithium batteries to a certain extent, but it is not a necessary item in lithium batteries, and it can operate normally without it, but the performance will decline.

On the side, Fan Pengyue replied instead of Xu Chuan: "Yes, the relevant data of composite coatings and carbon-aluminum materials have been entered, if Professor McGmillan wants to see it, we can do a simple simulation of the R&D process." ”

"Then the carbon-aluminum coating."

Fan Pengyue: "Do you have any performance requirements?" ”

"Can you also set the performance of the choice of carbon-aluminum coated sheets?" McGmillan asked, surprised.

"Theoretically, yes, but at the moment you can't perfectly simulate the performance slice you want, after all, it's just a basic and rudimentary model for the time being." Xu Chuan shrugged his shoulders and replied.

McGremiran thought for a while and said, "Then the thickness of the aluminum foil is set to be 10~30μm, the thickness of the SuperP conductive layer is 0.3~0.9μm, the thickness of the graphene conductive layer is 0.5~1.2μm, and the thickness of the mixed conductive layer is 0.3~2μm."

McGmillan quickly sifted through the performance parameters of some aluminum carbon flakes in his mind, and he was now more and more curious about how far the rudimentary model in front of him could go.

Fan Pengyue nodded, turned his head and instructed the programmers to start inputting these parameters into the mathematical model, and then start the simulation research and development of carbon-aluminum coating materials.

On the screen, after the ape enters the parameters and requirements into the model, the rudimentary mathematical model starts to run automatically.

The appearance of the model is very simple, but this model is actually not small, the number of lines of code is quite large, and the development of the model has gone through more than half a year.

Moreover, it was not the Chuanhai Materials Research Institute that developed and wrote this model, it was outsourced to a well-known software company, and it took nearly 11 million to complete a basic version.

But how to say it, after spending money, the quality must still be guaranteed.

The group waited in the office for about an hour and a half before the simulation research and development of the carbon-aluminum coating material was completed.

The detailed data after operation has been saved in the corresponding file, and each person will have a copy after printing it out.

After taking the document from the staff, McGmillan couldn't wait to read it.

A detailed preparation method of charcoal-coated aluminum foil comprises the following steps:

S1: Pretreatment of the aluminum foil body.

The detailed treatment scheme is as follows: [S1, the priority scheme for treating the aluminum foil body, the thickness standard is to use acetic acid to remove dirt and impurities on the surface of the aluminum foil. 】

S2: Mix the binder and solvent and stir evenly, then add two or more conductive agents, mix evenly, and obtain a composite conductive paste.

The detailed treatment scheme is as follows: [S2, the preparation of composite conductive paste priority scheme, take PTFE or polyvinylidene fluoride. 】

S3: The composite conductive paste is loaded into the electrospinning device, the aluminum foil is sprayed, and then the first layer of composite carbonized aluminum foil is dried;

The detailed treatment scheme is as follows: [S3, the first layer of composite carbon-coated aluminum foil preparation priority scheme, take sodium tripolyphosphate. The electrostatic spraying voltage is 15-20kV, the solution flow rate is 0.5-3ml·h-1, and the distance between the electrospinning nozzle and the aluminum foil is 0.5-10cm.

S4：.

S5：.

In the office, Macmillan looked at the plan in his hand, his eyes full of shock.

The scheme in hand not only gives a fairly detailed preparation process, but also gives the optimal scheme for each step, including the selection and treatment of materials, what kind of equipment is needed, the requirements for equipment in the processing process, temperature, pressure, etc., all give reference information.

More importantly, there is not only one solution given through the model.

The document in his hand lists three possible preparation options.

Although not everything in this plan is perfect in his eyes, and there are many things that can be optimized, this is a miracle in itself.

Of course, it would not be a problem if all the steps were manually entered in advance, but it is clear that the mathematical model in front of you does not use this method.

Macmillan never imagined that a model could do this and rely on mathematical models to complete the selection, calculation, and optimization of materials. And so on all the steps, how is this possible!

After flipping through the solution given by the computational model in his hand, he couldn't wait to ask: "My God, how the hell did you do it!" ”

Xu Chuan put down the copywriting in his hand and explained with a smile: "This is the charm of the combination of mathematics, physics and chemistry, which can bring us a new world." ”

"Of course, it's not perfect right now, and it needs quite a bit of optimization. But I believe that one day, it will change the whole world! ”

"At that time, the research and development of materials will no longer be completely based on experience and exploration, and we can hand over the corresponding needs to the computer, which will save us a lot of time."

Hearing this, David McGmillan looked at Xu Chuan and couldn't help but swallow his saliva, and said, "This is really an extremely crazy plan!" You're a lunatic! Have you ever thought that you would make a large number of material R&D personnel unemployed? ”

If you look at what the person in front of you is talking about, if this model is really completed, it will turn the entire world of materials upside down.

Of course, breakthroughs in materials may follow.

But at the same time, it is foreseeable that R&D personnel in the materials industry, especially those who are basic, will be highly likely to lose their jobs on a large scale.

After all, if this model can be completed, perhaps most of the basic work of future material research and development can be handed over to this model.

In this way, many of the jobs of those low-level researchers will be replaced.

Of course, for a leading scientific scholar working on chemical materials, there is no doubt that it has a fatal attraction!

Because it saves more time and gives a lot of different references from a scientific point of view.

Just like today's simulation of charcoal-coated aluminum foil, after just over an hour and a half, the model gave several different options.

If the experiment were to be done manually, this would take at least a few days or more to complete.

On the other side, Xu Chuan smiled and said, "In my opinion, there is nothing bad about this." ”

"Human beings are creative creatures, especially as researchers and scholars who have mastered cutting-edge knowledge, they should focus their attention and energy on breakthroughs, rather than repeating the work of cattle and horses that can be easily replaced."

"And this model can theoretically save a lot of time to a large extent, and even combine the optimal scheme, but it can't replace the material development personnel."

"The most cutting-edge and top-notch breakthroughs are always related to people, and human creativity can never be replaced by current computers."

"Including the solutions it provides, in fact, people need to test and experiment, so it will always be just an auxiliary tool, and it cannot replace the existence of people."

After a pause, he continued, "And over time, even if I don't do it, someone will come and do the job." ”

(End of chapter)