Great Power Heavy Industry: Rise

Chapter 43 Calcium Intercalated Graphene Materials
Three days later, July 9.

The exhibitors of the Red Star Machinery Expo returned triumphantly and were warmly welcomed by the company staff.

Zhong Cheng did not go to those summary and celebration meetings, he devoted himself to the research and development work with great enthusiasm.

Of course, the first thing he has to do is to increase the production capacity of the machine tool factory entrusted to him by the company, who made him brag in front of Manager Li.

Moreover, the company also pulled out the funds and asked him to get another Nuwa No. [-] and hand it over to the Academy of Science and Technology of the Ministry of National Defense for use. This is also what he asked for.

Now he misses the days in the technical section of the engine business department very much, no one pays attention, and all the time is at his disposal.

However, he took a break from his busy schedule and consulted a lot of information to understand the ins and outs of graphene materials.

He found that due to its unique characteristics, graphene is called a "magic material" and has great development prospects in many fields.

Graphene batteries have achieved success in the experimental stage, while power batteries are in the stage where both lead-acid batteries and traditional lithium batteries have encountered development bottlenecks.

After the graphene energy storage device is successfully developed, if it can be mass-produced, it will bring new changes to the industrial battery and even the electric vehicle industry.

However, the cost issue mentioned by Ye Wenxin is indeed an insurmountable mountain for the large-scale application of graphene.

At present, there are three main methods of graphene production: mechanical exfoliation method, redox method, and epitaxy method.

However, there are problems such as high cost, low efficiency, long production cycle, and large environmental pollution. Moreover, the produced graphene is difficult to meet the ideal requirements, and it is okay to play in the laboratory.

Zhong Chengcheng went to the underground nine-story material laboratory of "Tianwaitian" to personally conduct a graphene production test. He estimated that the best graphene finished product would have an energy density of 600 Wh/kg after being made into a power battery.

It can't meet his minimum requirements, and the road seems to be broken.

Zhong Cheng would not give up so easily. He approached Liu Yuzhu and discussed the feasibility of graphene batteries.

When Liu Yuzhu was in school, he studied chemical batteries. He believes that it is impossible for graphene batteries to be put into market application in the short term.

At present, Dongyang people are at the forefront in the research of power batteries, and they only use graphene as an additive in lithium-ion batteries, which is far from a real graphene battery.

However, in the communication with Liu Yuzhu, Zhong Cheng keenly discovered a breakthrough point. In fact, the graphene material is suitable for power batteries mainly because of its high conductivity, which reduces the consumption of electric energy and improves the storage capacity of electric energy.

And isn't high electrical conductivity one of the two characteristics of the hottest superconducting materials nowadays?
He also consulted relevant literature, and now the most promising superconducting materials mainly include copper-oxygen superconductors, iron-based superconductors, and magnesium boride superconductors.

Unfortunately, the critical temperature of superconductivity is more than minus 200 degrees, and the cost of refrigeration is too high to be applied on a large scale.

Still nothing!

Just when Zhong Cheng was about to despair, he thought of 9527.

In the past six months, his success in the design of the Nuwa industrial mother machine made him a little bit flustered. He left 9527 behind and hadn't contacted 9527 for a long time.

"9527, are you still there?"

"Not dead yet!" 9527's voice appeared in his mind, a little resentful.

Zhong Cheng said with a guilty conscience: "Cough! It's good that I'm not dead. I've had enough rest for a while. I want to talk to you!"

"Talk about farts, you must be in trouble, so fart it!" 9527 was very rude.

Zhong Cheng didn't care about it, and explained the development of the power battery in detail. He didn't know if this guy understood the situation.

"That's it?!" After he said "mouth dry" in his mind, 9527 came out with two words.

"Yeah! That's all." Zhong Cheng was a little unsure about 9527's meaning. This guy's way of thinking is different from that of humans.

"You can't handle it with just this broken battery?" 9527's voice was full of disdain.

But Zhong Cheng was not angry but happy, he asked eagerly: "Do you have a solution?"

"Haven't you already figured out the solution? Use graphene solid-state batteries to stimulate the superconductivity of graphene materials at high pressure and low temperature. It is very easy to achieve your small goal."

"you!"

Zhong Cheng is a little speechless, if this is the case, why should I ask you?
"However, the production cost of graphene is too high, and the performance of the produced graphene cannot meet the requirements, so it cannot be used!"

"Oh, that's it. This technology has been eliminated for too long in my original civilization. Let me look for it."

9527 said something that made Zhong Cheng excited, and he anxiously waited for 9527's final reply.

Sure enough, 9527 did not disappoint him. A few minutes later, it said: "Well, I finally found it. It was a broken technology tens of thousands of years ago. Now you can unlock it in the system technology tree."

Zhong Cheng hastily clicked into the technology tree of the 'Great Power Heavy Industry System', and sure enough he found the 'Method of Making Graphene Battery' in the Industrial Branch Materials Science, but it needs 36500 technology points to unlock it.

"9527! Did you do it on purpose?"

Zhong Cheng became angry, "You said that you need so many technology points to unlock the broken technology? And I only have 36587 technology points now. Are you asking for a price based on my technology points?"

"Cough! This is broken technology for me, but it is advanced technology for you Blue Star people. I charge you so many technology points because I take care of you. Otherwise, if you want 10 technology points, you still don't want to jump off the building. 88, I went to sleep!"

"you!"

He has nothing to do with 9527.

However, he still simply clicked "Confirm" and unlocked the 'Graphene Battery Manufacturing Method', which instantly washed away the technology points he had saved for more than half a year and was reluctant to use.

The leeks were cut by 9527.

Although 9527 is a little "greedy", it is reliable in terms of service.

This set of "Graphene battery manufacturing method" has a very detailed description from the principle to the manufacturing process, as well as some experimental data, and even the manufacturing method of the test tool, as well as the use of graphene as a power battery material.

There are thousands of pages of information, and it takes a lot of time to interpret, but Zhong Cheng is very happy.

After 10 days, Zhong Cheng completed the interpretation work. Fortunately, he had accumulated relevant knowledge in the early stage, otherwise he really couldn't understand it.

In fact, it is a layer of window paper, once it is pierced, it is very simple.

The method uses a material called calcium-intercalated graphene (CaC6), which is not really graphene.

CaC6 is a graphene intercalation composite material obtained by the chemical reaction between pure calcium crystals and graphite. It is composed of single-layer carbon atom graphene and single-layer atomic calcium alternately compounded.

It is a layer of graphene and a layer of calcium, just like the laminates commonly used in modern furniture.

Electrons scatter back and forth between the graphene and calcium atomic layers, naturally vibrating and pairing with the material's atomic structure, resulting in electrical conductivity without resistance.

Although the application in other fields has yet to be further developed, it is very suitable for use in power batteries.

To put it bluntly, the power battery is an energy storage device, which only stores electrical energy and releases it.

It is a sealed space in itself, plus several atmospheric pressures and a low temperature of tens of degrees below zero are no problem at all. Although it is not a true superconducting zero resistance, there is no technical obstacle to breaking through 2000 Wh/kg.

Most importantly, the production of calcium-intercalated graphene materials no longer requires a lot of power consumption, and the raw materials are extremely cheap limestone and graphite. Although they are not as cheap as tofu, they are also more expensive than ordinary steel.

Zhong Cheng finally saw the hope of success!

(PS: This book is science fiction. This calcium-intercalated graphene material is only a conjecture and can be discussed, but don’t take it seriously.)
(End of this chapter)