Chapter 945: Melting in the Palm of Your Hand (First Two Chapters)
"Electrolyte? That's true, but it's probably not easy to make. It takes a lot of time." The comrades at the aluminum plant were naturally aware of the importance of electrolytes, but since they lacked theoretical knowledge, they could only use the exhaustive method.

As for the exhaustive method, if you are lucky once, it will be enough, but if you are unlucky, you will never be able to solve it even if you die. Comrades are very clear-headed and do not put their hopes on luck, as that is not a healthy state.

But what they didn't expect was that the luck was not on them, but on Gao Zhendong.

He wrote a very long, almost ridiculously long string of English letters on the blackboard.

“Try this.”

Now, wherever Gao Zhendong attends a meeting, there will be experience. Just put the whole blackboard there first. Chief Engineer Gao might want to write or draw something at any time. If you are not prepared, it will be your own loss.

The comrades from the aluminum factory looked at Gao Zhendong with a bit of confusion, and then looked at the string of characters on the blackboard that showed not only the ingredients but even the ratios, which were accurate to one decimal place.

Na3AlF6-AlF3（10.87%-16.67%）-Al2O3（3%）-CaF2（4%）-LiF（0-6%）-NaCl（0-8%）。

No, how do you know this thing will work?

But doubts aside, Chief Engineer Gao's reputation is there, and nothing he comes up with will fail.

Comrades, no matter where this thing comes from, just copy it down first! Everyone wrote quickly and furiously.

As they were taking notes, Gao Zhendong seemed to remember something: "If lithium fluoride is difficult to obtain, you can also consider magnesium fluoride. However, you may need to try the specific ratio yourself. I didn't think in that direction at first."

Actually, I didn’t think much about it, I just relied on memory.

That’s enough. Not only is there the optimal solution, but there is also an alternative formula. Even if the alternative formula has not been solved yet, at least it can be used. If there is a way, there is a way.

In engineering, there are many examples where the theory has not been completely solved but does not hinder practical application, such as the famous NS equation.

However, some comrades also remembered that when Chief Engineer Gao was working on ESR, he had modified the slag system. That thing and this electrolyte are similar in some ways.

It doesn't seem strange that tall people are good at everything.

Gao Zhendong's operation stunned the comrade from Qianshan who was accompanying him. Is this the strength of a top technician? This is something I have learned a lot.

The comrade from the aluminum plant happily copied down the electrolyte, and then said, "Chief Engineer Gao, you just mentioned the four lows and one high, but the electrolysis process is a dynamic process, and it is not easy for us to control it. The temperature is easy to control. We have your thermocouple, which doesn't cost much and can measure quickly and accurately. But for things like alumina content and molecular ratio, we can only control them by adding materials at regular intervals during the electrolysis process, which is somewhat out of touch with the actual reaction process and cannot achieve the best results."

Gao Zhendong started using professional terms for automatic control: "Well, I just looked at your production process and technology. It is indeed open-loop control, and does not take into account the feedback of the actual process. If it can be closed-loop and dynamically adjust the previous parameters, the energy consumption should be better. This is not difficult. You just need to measure the resistivity. As for control, don't you have a single-chip microcomputer? That thing is cheap, and compared with the energy-saving effect, the cost is nothing."

This should be a very natural thing, but the comrades at the aluminum factory showed difficulty on their faces.

"Mr. Gao, you know, the situation here is rather difficult, in terms of personnel... Computers are new, and even if we have people who go out to study, it's hard for them to come back with computer talent," a comrade from the aluminum plant explained.

Gao Zhendong suddenly realized that there is a shortage of computer talents everywhere now. Although in principle students can go back to where they came from, this is a special emerging technology. College students who go out will most likely be directly intercepted by local units. As long as there is a unit willing to accept them, there will be relatively few students who go out of Qianshan to study related majors and come back.

"Oh, I understand. It's okay. For this project, you can send someone to my place, the Third Plant of the Third Beijing Steel Rolling Mill, to contact the comrades in the Technical Department there. They will guide you to complete the relevant design and testing of this control system, and I can also lend a hand nearby." Gao Zhendong was very straightforward.

For the comrades in the Technical Department of the Third Plant, this is actually not difficult as long as Qianshan Aluminum Plant actively cooperates. At least there will be no problem in getting this thing started.

Not to mention the aluminum plant, even the comrades in Qianshan were overjoyed. Chief Engineer Gao was really helping without any pretense.

"Thank you so much. We will submit the report to the ministry later." The comrade from the aluminum plant said gratefully.

Gao Zhendong thought about it, then turned to the deputy from Qianshan who came with him and said, "Leader, if the education problem is not solved, the stamina will be insufficient. My suggestion is that you pick a few teachers from the colleges and universities in Qianshan and send them to Beijing to study hard, so that they can come back and start branches in Qianshan. I have some influence in the 12th Ministry of Machinery, the Institute of Computation, and some related colleges and universities, so this matter can still be arranged."

It is a little-known fact that the computer science major of Qianshan University was a dominant subject in the 21st century. Of course, this was due to the introduction of talents. Gao Zhendong simply helped Qianshan to lay a more solid foundation.

When the comrades from Qianshan heard this, they were overjoyed. Team Leader Gao’s help was really sincere: “Team Leader Gao, thank you so much! On behalf of the people of Qianshan, I thank you!” Team Leader Gao, maybe his martyr parents are really from Qianshan, otherwise why would they be so kind to us.

After talking about this, the comrade from the aluminum plant brought up another idea: "Chief Engineer Gao, we just talked about saving money. In addition, we want to increase revenue."

Open source is not that easy. If cost-cutting has an object, open source may not even have an object.

"Tell me what you think. You may have the same idea as me, haha." Gao Zhendong said with a smile.

The phrase "we think alike" even gave the comrades here a sense of pride that "great minds think alike". Being able to think alike with General Gao is something worth being happy about.

"Well, we think that there is more than just aluminum in the bauxite. Can we find some useful things and extract them as by-products? Otherwise, it would be a waste."

Gao Zhendong asked with great interest: "Then what do you think is more suitable?"

This question stumped the comrades at the aluminum plant, who just didn't know what was the right one. In bauxite, besides aluminum, what else was more important and could be easily extracted?
“We haven’t thought about this yet…”

Gao Zhendong smiled and said, "It's okay if you haven't thought it through. I've thought it through for you. Didn't I just say that we have the same idea? There is something very important. Although the content is small and it is difficult to extract, I think it is worth doing."

"What is it?" The comrades from the aluminum factory became excited.

Since Mr. Gao said it is important, then it must be very important.

Gao Zhendong laughed: "Gallium!"

"Gallium? It can indeed be extracted from bauxite, but the content is too low. Although it is very unique, it doesn't seem to have much significance now, right?"

The use of gallium has not been fully demonstrated at this time. This thing is very special. Apart from mercury, it is the metal with the lowest melting point. It will melt if you hold it in your palm.

Although there are some technologies to extract gallium from the electrolytic aluminum process, it is not considered a very important thing at this time.

Gao Zhendong shook his head: "No, this thing is very important."

There are some things he didn't do, and gallium production is also a reason.

Ever since he knew that he was going to Qianshan on a business trip, this matter has been on his mind. It would be difficult for Qianshan Aluminum Plant to obtain gallium and form industrial production.

In fact, other people don’t know whether it is important or not, but since Chief Engineer Gao said it is important, it must be very important. Even if it is not, he has a way to make it true.

"Mr. Gao, is it really that important? But our current technology for extracting gallium is very limited, and it requires a lot of lime. Even though there are rocks everywhere here, the energy consumption will be very high."

The chief engineer of the aluminum plant knew a thing or two about the technology of extracting gallium from electrolytic aluminum. After all, one of the technologies was learned from the Russians and has been used in the industrial production of gallium since 1957.

That is the lime milk method, which uses lime milk to treat the mother liquor produced by the Bayer process, separate gallium and aluminum, and then extract enriched gallium from the separated solution.

However, this method has a big disadvantage, which is that it causes a large amount of changes in the composition of the circulating alkali solution. A large amount of lime is needed for causticization before it can be returned to the alumina production process. Although lime looks very common, it has to be burned with limestone, so the energy consumption cannot be low.

Gao Zhendong was very clear that the rumor circulating on the Internet in his previous life that gallium came from the by-product of aluminum electrolysis was actually not very accurate. To be precise, gallium did not come from the electrolysis of aluminum, but from the mother liquor produced by the Bayer process before aluminum electrolysis, when bauxite was processed into alumina.

There are many ways to extract gallium from the mother liquor of the Bayer process. Gao Zhendong spent a lot of money to extract the relevant materials from the system for this purpose, so the concerns of the comrades from the aluminum plant were not a big problem for him. He also happened to know that one of the methods, although not the best, was the best under current technical conditions, and Qianshan happened to have very good conditions.

"Your concerns are reasonable, but we don't use the lime milk method to refine it. We use other methods, and one of them happens to be very beneficial to you."

The comrades at Qianshan Aluminum Plant have now truly felt how powerful the legendary Chief Engineer Gao is. In addition to the lime milk method, he even has many other methods and can pick and choose.

(End of this chapter)