Nitrogen was an almost inexhaustible resource on the planet, and by mixing hydrogen to make nitrogen fertilizer, the Austrian Empire would be able to feed a much larger population than it is today.

As for Dr. Natler's talent in construction machinery, Franz suggested that the former change his career to become an engineer, and the other party naturally accepted it gladly, so there was another big man in the field of construction machinery in Austria.

Franz also didn't want to limit the direction of the other party's research, and if he wanted to continue to improve the compressor, he could publish the results of his research and hand them over to others to continue research.

Mr. Babbage, who converted to the Church, also encountered a bottleneck, that is, the speed of the steam engine, the upper limit was too low, and even a perfect design could not achieve true perfection.

So the pioneer of the computer began to study, and the Grand Duke Franz proposed a new power - electricity. Babbage collected a lot of research on electricity and then began another big leap into a new field.

Babbage jumped directly over all the previous steps to prepare for the development of the alternating current generator, of course, this is just Franz's own feeling, after all, his own understanding of electricity is very limited, otherwise he would have gone to rub the generator himself.

Franz tried to get other electrical experts to decipher Babbage's train of thought, but everyone else thought he was crazy.

Ada on the other side (assistant to Babbage, daughter of Lord Byron. Still perfecting the previous Trinity Analyzer.

This analyzer has been able to do a lot of leapfrogging calculations, but the problem is obvious: it is too large and slow, and there is a certain probability of self-explosion.

After Babbage went to work on the generator, Babbage Jr. took over the mantle of the former and continued to preside over the research of the "Trinity" analysis machine.

However, the latter preferred small and delicate things over the former, and he felt that it was enough to solve the problems of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, after all, it was better to leave the mathematicians and calculators to those who were too complicated.

In fact, after Franz developed the profession of calculator, a large number of laboratories and institutions began to hire calculators, which made this profession in short supply for a while.

In fact, the irony is that Babbage's analytical machine has never been able to beat the top mathematicians when it comes to complex calculations.

In addition, the development of steelmaking technology was smooth sailing, and the alkaline converter steelmaking method used in the Austrian Empire at this time could well avoid the problem of high phosphorus content in iron ore in the Austrian Empire.

As for the top-down reblowing method, it was actually invented by the Austrians, so Franz is not plagiarized when he uses it now.

Platner and Batchel showed great interest in the gas liquefaction test, but they wanted oxygen instead of nitrogen, because then they could achieve what Franz called pure oxygen blowing.

In fact, although the top-bottom reblowing method used at this time is advanced, but the air contains 79% useless impurities, which is undoubtedly a huge waste, if it can be replaced with pure oxygen, then whether it is production, quality, or speed can be improved.

In fact, their prediction was correct, and even today it is one of the most advanced steelmaking methods, and it does not have as many limitations as the electric arc furnace steelmaking method.

Once this method is realized, its steel quality will be completely lifted in this era, and the speed is more than ten times that of the open-hearth method.

Visiting new inventions and discussing new technologies should be Franz's greatest pastime at this time.

A new technique for refining mercury was developed, which was of little use to the Austrian Empire itself, but fortunately the Grand Duchy of Tuscany had the largest mercury mine in Central Europe.

Franz could sell the technology to Leopold II, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who gladly accepted the deal, as they belonged to the same family.

Archduke Leopold II had little interest in ruling the country and rarely interfered in its affairs, but this time he accepted the deal because of his family connections.

However, this is also his advantage, because he is more concerned about family affairs, so Archduke Leopold II is also one of the first people to invest in Franz.

In return, the Austrian Empire was now the biggest patron of Tuscan mercury.

Mercury has a wide range of functions, including but not limited to the production of chlorine and caustic soda, acetic acid, acetone, etc.

Compounds of mercury can be used to make antifungal agents for leather and plants, wood preservatives, and antiseptic paints (for painting the underwater part of ships), and mercury is also needed for the military.

Production of pigments for painting, cosmetics, printing, etc. At the same time, it is a traditional medicine, and it is not a legend that European doctors bleed and poured mercury to "cure" all diseases.

Phlebotomy and mercury therapy were once the two leading figures in European medicine, with patients either dying of blood loss and infection, or mercury poisoning replaced by mercury in their blood.

However, mercury is not useless in medicine, and has certain effects in the treatment of disinfection, diuresis, stomach diseases, skin diseases, and venereal diseases.

In addition to these, mercury can also be used to make various dosimeters, such as barometers, thermometers, blood pressure monitors, etc.

At this time, its two main functions were actually to produce chlorine and extract gold.

Although mercury is almost no longer used in modern industrial chlorine production, electricity was extremely scarce at the time, and the traditional mercury method was the best way to do it when electrolysis was not available.

Historically, the gold rush in California was very wasteful, with the gold diggers taking only large chunks of golden sand, the gold particles and pyrite scattered in the quartz being thrown away as garbage, and the alchemy waste leaving a large amount of gold particles.

If Franz hadn't taken control of the minerals, he would have opened a recycling plant to buy the slag left over from the gold diggers' alchemy, as well as the ores that were considered unrefinable.

Don't underestimate this humble recycling effort, turning waste into treasure is no joke, and judging by the level of waste at the time, perhaps the gold mined by the gold diggers was not as much as the gold recycled by Franz.

In fact, Americans can still find the waste that was discarded by the gold diggers back then, which shows the weight of waste at that time.

However, the method of extracting gold from pyrite with mercury was only proposed in 1851, but this did not prevent Franz from using it in the slightest.

The process is to first let the mercury react with pyrite, remove the arsenide after roasting, then add chlorine gas to pass through the ore, then add hydrochloric acid, and hydrogen sulfide to precipitate the gold, and the iron molecules remain in the solution.

With the emergence of new discoveries and new laws, the iteration rate of physics and chemistry books used for teaching is also accelerating.

Franz had to hire someone to keep up with the times and edit the new chemistry and physics application manual, after all, this kind of high-intensity and fast-paced work is neither decent nor realistic.

However, for experts and scholars, for students of basic and secondary education, those basic common sense will not change, so there is no need to worry.

(End of chapter)