The rejuvenation of a great nation: from educated youth to national treasure scientist

Chapter 185 Urea production must be independent! [Request full order]

Li Jieshi came to visit Wang Haoran this time mainly to express his gratitude.

In the past one or two years, the economic development of Licai Village has reached a new level.

Benma Company, with Mafang Machinery Factory as its main body, built a washing machine production factory covering an area of ​​500 acres in Licai Village.

This factory has now started mass production of washing machines.

It produces twin-tub washing machines, which are mainly sold in rural areas.

At the same time, it also produces a large number of fully automatic single-cylinder washing machines, which are aimed at cities.

In the past year, the annual output of washing machines of Benma Washing Machine Factory has exceeded one million units.

The villagers of Licai Village are now basically free from production. Most of the young people work in factories, some run small businesses, or simply rent out their houses to migrant workers, which has greatly increased their family income.

Of course, there are still some middle-aged and elderly people who are reluctant to give up the land and are still farming.

This time, Li Jieshi brought Wang Haoran a bag of freshly ground flour and a pot of soybean oil.

Wang Haoran naturally wanted to accompany him to have a meal and chat in his new home.

When Li Jieshi talked about the changes in Licai Village today, he was really eloquent and his face was full of joy.

"Haoran! Thinking back to those days, life was really hard!"

"We in Licai Village are living a very good life now."

"I used to eat meat only once or twice a year, but now I eat meat every day. I didn't always get to wear new clothes during the Chinese New Year, but now I buy new clothes every few days."

"Every household lives in a big house, and the three new gadgets, television, refrigerator and washing machine, have become popular in our village."

Wang Haoran smiled and said, "Our lives will be better in the future."

"I will try to buy a private car as soon as possible so that it will be convenient for me to travel by car."

Li Jieshi waved his hand and said, "I definitely can't afford a car. Cars are too expensive."

"Nowadays, any small car costs less than 100,000 yuan."

Wang Haoran said: "It's mainly because our domestic automobile industry is underdeveloped and the market is still dominated by foreign-funded automobiles, so the prices are high."

"Once our domestically produced cars develop, the prices of cars will also be brought down rapidly."

Li Jieshi chuckled and said, "That's true! A color TV used to cost thousands of yuan, but now it only costs a few hundred yuan. Let's just wait for the day when cars become very cheap."

Wang Haoran smiled and said, "If car prices drop and our incomes rise sharply, maybe within a few years, we farmers will be able to afford private cars."

After chatting for a while, Li Jieshi finally talked about the purpose of coming to see Wang Haoran this time: he wanted to ask Wang Haoran to use his connections to buy some fertilizer.

Li Jieshi said: "Oh! It's really hard to buy fertilizer now."

"Isn't it time to fertilize the wheat soon?"

"We have been looking for fertilizers everywhere in our village, but we can't find any!"

“Without fertilizers, the harvest from the fields would be much less.”

"The old guys in the village who are still farming are all very worried now."

When Wang Haoran was still working in the countryside, Licai Village basically did not use chemical fertilizers. They used organic fertilizers that they had accumulated themselves.

But with the development in recent years, the country began to promote the use of chemical fertilizers.

After using chemical fertilizers, farmers found that the yield difference between using chemical fertilizers and not using chemical fertilizers could be at least 30% or more.

Therefore, nowadays, chemical fertilizers have basically begun to be widely used in rural areas outside Beijing.

Of course, organic fertilizer production in rural areas is also continuing.

In fact, most of the chemical fertilizers used in rural areas now are ammonium bicarbonate, which has a low nitrogen content and an alkaline solution.

If too much of this fertilizer is used, the soil will easily become compacted and lose its fertility, and in serious cases it will even become salinized.

The best fertilizer is urea.

Urea not only has a high nitrogen content, but it is also a neutral fertilizer with a neutral solution and does no harm to the land.

But now Longguo’s urea production is very low.

Longguo does not have its own equipment to produce urea.

Most urea production equipment is imported from countries such as Russia or Russia.

Of course, more are imported from foot basins.

This is mainly because Jiaoben now provides Longguo with a large amount of Japanese yen loans.

However, Longguo is now in great shortage of foreign exchange.

Therefore, many times you can only choose the equipment with foot basin.

In addition to the above reason, there is another point: Jiaoben people are very good at public relations and get orders through some tricks.

Today, there are only a handful of large-scale urea production companies in Longguo, with an annual output of less than 200 million tons of urea, which cannot meet the needs of agricultural planting across the country.

Wang Haoran really didn't know whether he could satisfy Li Jieshi's request.

After all, he rarely comes into contact with this kind of things.

He could only say to Li Jieshi: "Uncle Jieshi, let me ask for you. If I find a way, I'll tell you then, okay?"

Li Jieshi was very happy. He said, "I know it's a bit difficult for you to help with this matter."

"Haoran, the main reason I came here this time is to talk to you about the fertilizer. If you can find it, that would be the best. If you can't, I won't blame you, haha!"

After Li Jieshi left, Wang Haoran asked someone to inquire about it.

As a result, he found that urea was out of stock throughout the capital area.

Ammonium bicarbonate is available, but this fertilizer is harmful to the soil.

Wang Haoran called Li Jieshi and told him about the situation.

Li Jieshi said, "We can also find ammonium bicarbonate. Oh! It seems that urea is really in short supply nationwide now. It's okay, Haoran! When you have free time, come back to our Licai Village and take a look. I guarantee you will be surprised! Haha! We have almost become a small town now."

After the call, Wang Haoran thought that it seemed necessary to hurry up and develop the domestic large-scale urea production equipment.

The principle of urea production is very simple.

However, achieving large-scale industrial production is a very complicated matter.

Today, the number of countries in the world that have complete large-scale urea production equipment can be counted on one hand.

And Longguo is obviously not among them.

Wang Haoran now has the most advanced urea production equipment technology in his mind.

But to take it out, you still have to get in touch with it and understand it first.

At present, the largest and most advanced urea production enterprise in China is in Sichuan Province.

In 1974, Sichuan Chemical Plant introduced a large-scale fertilizer production unit from Jiaoben, which was one of the thirteen large-scale fertilizer units introduced nationwide at that time.

At present, the urea production scale of Sichuan chemical plants ranks among the top in the country.

Wang Haoran decided to go to the Sichuan Chemical Plant to investigate and learn more about it.

He arrived in Sichuan Province by plane in early May 1981.

Of course, before coming here, he had already informed the Sichuan Chemical Plant.

Liu Changzheng, the director of Sichuan Chemical Plant, felt a little surprised that Wang Haoran came to the factory for investigation.

Because the chemical industry doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Pangu Technology, right?
Although he had doubts in his heart, Liu Changzheng still received Wang Haoran warmly.

After all, Wang Haoran’s fame in China is really too great now.

Wang Haoran originally wanted to go to the Sichuan Chemical Plant in a low profile and only brought a secretary with him.

However, when we arrived at the airport in Sichuan Province, there were already security personnel waiting on the ground to pick us up.

Three almost identical Modou brand cars drove into the gate of the Sichuan Chemical Plant and stopped in front of its office building.

Liu Changzheng had already received the news, and he hurried downstairs with a few cadres to greet them.

"Comrade Haoran, hello! Welcome to guide our work!"

Liu Changzheng and Wang Haoran greeted each other and shook hands.

Wang Haoran smiled and said, "Director Liu, I'm sorry to bother you."

"I came here mainly to learn and see what the level of the large fertilizer device of the foot basin people is like."

Liu Changzheng waved his hand and said, "You are too polite. The large fertilizer equipment of the Jiaoben people is generally quite advanced."

"However, the production efficiency is still a bit low, and the production cost is much higher than that of European and American companies."

Wang Haoran smiled and said, "I've said it before, the equipment that the Jiaoben people exported to us is basically what they are about to eliminate."

"They sell these outdated equipment to us at high prices and make huge profits from us." Liu Changzheng sighed and said, "Companies in Europe and the United States want to sell us better equipment, but we don't have that much US dollars."

"It is the Foot Basin people who provide loans, so we can afford their equipment."

Although in the past one or two years, Longguo has also begun to export high value-added products and the foreign exchange earned has increased significantly, there are still many foreign products that need to be imported, so foreign exchange is still in a state of being insufficient.

Wang Haoran said: "Liu Changzheng, can you take me to see the equipment and production lines?"

Liu Changzheng nodded and said, "Okay, you are an expert in CNC, can you take a look at this equipment and see if there is room for improvement in CNC?"

Liu Changzheng took Wang Haoran to visit the entire urea production plant.

Large-scale fertilizer production equipment mainly includes: hydrogen production equipment, ammonia synthesis tower, large-scale double-drum fluidized bed large-granular urea equipment, etc.

The ammonia synthesis tower is its core device.

This large fertilizer plant at the Sichuan Chemical Plant uses natural gas as raw material and uses steam reforming to reform the natural gas vapor through a catalyst to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide.

Then, the hydrogen and the nitrogen separated from the air are acted on by catalytic enzymes in the ammonia synthesis tower to finally produce liquid ammonia.

Liquid ammonia and carbon dioxide are then reacted in a urea synthesizer over a catalyst at a temperature of about 190 degrees and a pressure of 190 atmospheres to ultimately produce urea.

The whole process is quite complicated.

As Wang Haoran toured the site, he was thinking: Almost all of the equipment introduced now uses natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas as raw materials to synthesize ammonia. However, my country's most abundant resource is actually coal.

According to data from previous lives, approximately 80% of Dragon Country's large fertilizer plants are made from coal as raw material.

Therefore, the large fertilizer device I want to develop should use coal as the main raw material.

Of course, production equipment using natural gas as raw materials must also be developed to achieve full localization.

Urea is very important to a country.

It is not only the lifeline of agriculture, but also an important raw material for industrial production.

Even urea production is related to national defense construction.

One of the important raw materials for explosives is ammonium nitrate!

While Wang Haoran was touring, Liu Changzheng, who was accompanying him, was introducing the exhibition to him with great interest.

After the visit, Wang Haoran also asked a lot of questions.

He also asked to see the instruction manual and operating specifications of the device.

Liu Changzheng asked someone to produce some written information.

Wang Haoran took a look and found that the information was almost incomplete, and there was not even a structural diagram of the equipment.

Obviously, even if the products sold are relatively inferior, Xiaorizi is actually on guard against Dongda.

"What if there is a problem with the equipment? Can we maintain and repair it ourselves?" Wang Haoran asked Liu Changzheng.

Liu Changzheng shook his head and said, "We don't have the ability to repair and maintain it ourselves yet."

"However, the Foot Basin has specially dispatched technicians to serve us."

"The installation and debugging of this equipment are mostly done by foot basin people."

Wang Haoran smiled and said, "Obviously, the other party is on guard against us."

"They don't want us to figure out how these devices work and then build our own large fertilizer plants."

Liu Changzheng nodded and said, "That's right, it's true."

“So, we feel a little bit frustrated.”

Wang Haoran laughed and said, "They want to make money from us, but they also want to keep strangling us."

"They are really shady."

"Director Liu, why don't we just stop providing after-sales maintenance services? In the future, we can maintain the equipment ourselves and train our own technicians, isn't that good?"

Liu Changzheng was stunned for a moment, shook his head, smiled bitterly and said: "If the equipment breaks down, we will be at a loss."

"For such expensive equipment, a day's delay would bring huge benefits!"

Wang Haoran smiled and said, "Only by getting rid of them can we cultivate our own talents."

"Otherwise, we will be controlled by them forever."

"It would cost a lot of money to have them maintain and repair it, right?"

Liu Changzheng grinned with a bit of pain in his face and said, "That's right. It would cost at least 100,000 yuan to ask them to repair it for us!"

Wang Haoran smiled and said, "All equipment will age."

"The maintenance of new equipment may cost less. But when the equipment starts to age and have problems over the years, we have to let them handle it, which will cause more delays!"

Liu Changzheng asked: "Then, do you have any suggestions?"

Wang Haoran said, "If you trust me, I will study this equipment thoroughly and make a detailed manual for the equipment. This way, if there are any problems in the future, we can look through the manual and solve the problems ourselves."

Liu Changzheng was still hesitant: "But, there will probably be many parts inside that we can't produce, right?"

Wang Haoran said: "As long as we know the process dimensions and so on, how can we not produce it?"

"Director Liu, our current mechanical processing equipment is no longer what it used to be."

"You have to believe me. I will inspect these devices in the next few days to see if I can study them thoroughly."

Liu Changzheng said: "Then you can give it a try."

"The foot basin technical consultant who is stationed in our factory is not here these days."

"But do you need to shut down the equipment while you're doing your research?"

Wang Haoran smiled and said, "When the equipment is shut down for maintenance, I will disassemble it and study the inside."

It is impossible for any device to run continuously for a long time.

They all need maintenance after a period of time.

Liu Changzheng scratched his hair and said, "Our large fertilizer plant is new, so it will probably run continuously for a long time before it is shut down for maintenance."

"Comrade Haoran, you also know that if we stop production once, the production loss will be huge."

"Chemical fertilizers are in short supply in our country right now."

"The country is now urging us to work overtime and increase production."

Wang Haoran smiled and said, "Then there is no need to stop production. I will study the principle of the entire device according to the information given by the foot basin man, and deduce the process structure of all its equipment."

Liu Changzheng was very surprised: What the hell? Directly derive the process structure of this large fertilizer device of the foot basin man?
Can that be deduced?

You know, these large fertilizer plants are huge and the machine parts are very complicated. During maintenance, the maintenance workers have to enter directly between the towers, tanks, pipelines and valves. People are too small in front of these huge equipment.

"Comrade Haoran, why do I feel like this is a little unreliable?" Liu Changzheng said.

Wang Haoran smiled and said, "Give it a try!"

"What if it works? Haha!"

"I think that as long as you have a general understanding of the structure of these devices, you can actually deduce the design."

Liu Changzheng nodded and said, "I support you. If you need any help, just tell me directly."

Wang Haoran said: "When the time comes, please ask your factory's technicians to cooperate with me. I want to develop and design a large-scale fertilizer production device with completely independent intellectual property rights based on the research results of our equipment."

Liu Changzheng was a little skeptical about what Wang Haoran said.

However, he still expressed his firm support.

In this way, Wang Haoran stayed in the Sichuan Chemical Plant for about a month.

Liu Changzheng sent several technical backbones to assist Wang Haoran.

It took Wang Haoran seven or eight days to conduct a comprehensive inspection of the equipment.

Afterwards, he began to design and draw large-scale domestic fertilizer equipment.

He first drew the process structure design drawings of all important equipment, and then asked the technical staff of Sichuan Chemical Plant to help him draw more detailed process design drawings.

Liu Changzheng initially thought that Wang Haoran was joking.

However, he soon discovered that the designs made by Wang Haoran were quite good, and that Wang Haoran had also added a lot of electronic numerical control equipment when designing, which could control each production process more accurately.

This shocked Liu Changzheng.

So he sent more young technicians to assist Wang Haoran.

When Wang Haoran was developing a large domestic fertilizer plant, he did not hide anything, but told everyone he knew everything and patiently taught and helped the technical staff of the Sichuan chemical plant.

Just like that, by mid-July 1981, Wang Haoran had developed a large-scale fertilizer production device with a completely domestically designed design.

(End of this chapter)