If you cheat, money will follow

"Just desalinate seawater like this?" Chang Le felt that the process was a bit too simple.

"Boss, the principle of seawater desalination is actually very simple. It is to separate the salt and other impurities in seawater, leaving pure water." Zhang Jinpeng explained:

"The specific way to achieve this is to develop a highly efficient semi-permeable membrane that allows water molecules to pass through but does not allow solute molecules to pass through."

"Currently, the desalination effect of semi-permeable membranes produced by Dow, HydraNeng, Toray, General Motors, Pentair and other companies is only 40%, and supporting equipment needs to be installed."

"We found in our research that carbon nanotubes with special structures are very suitable for application in the field of seawater desalination."

"Various solute ions will encounter large energy barriers in the carbon nanotube composite film and cannot pass through."

An energy barrier is an energy barrier that must be overcome before entering a reaction path.

In other words, solute ions will encounter passage obstacles in carbon nanotubes.

"Water molecules do not have such problems." Zhang Jinpeng continued:

"The most important thing is that the separation membrane made of carbon nanotubes does not require energy to drive, nor does it need to be equipped with large equipment to generate a strong electric field, but the efficiency is as high as 90%."

After Zhang Jinpeng finished speaking, Liu Chaoyang continued:

"Zhang Jinpeng and his team's project sounds simple in theory, but it is not simple in actual research."

"Because the effect of ordinary carbon nanotubes in seawater desalination is not ideal, relatively narrow composite carbon nanotubes need to be made to block salt and impurities in the water."

"This project is a derivative project based on the Linli project and has great commercial value."

Chang Le nodded: "There is no doubt about the commercial value. What is the cost of desalination?"

Liu Chaoyang said: "We have calculated that the cost is mainly to make composite carbon nanotubes, which is about 0.7-1 yuan."

"If it is desalinated on a large scale, the cost will not be higher than 0.5 yuan/ton."

"I saw it just now, it's really simple."

Chang Le couldn't help but clapped his hands: "This project is great."

At present, the cost of almost all seawater desalination devices in the world is usually between 4 yuan and 7 yuan.

If the scale of desalination is large, the cost can be reduced to about 3.7 yuan/ton.

Costs mainly include facilities and equipment costs, operation and maintenance costs, energy costs, and wastewater treatment costs.

Among them, energy costs and operation and maintenance costs account for a large proportion.

Cost is always the core element in business models and profit logic.

Under commercial constraints, controlling minimum costs and achieving maximum profits are eternal themes.

"What are your thoughts on commercial promotion?" Chang Le asked.

"Boss, we still think it is more appropriate to adopt the technology licensing method. We will promote production through the Carbon Nanotube Alliance and we will charge a licensing fee." Liu Chaoyang said.

"That's okay. It's necessary to insist on the positioning of a technology output unit." Chang Le nodded:

"This technology may not seem revolutionary, but it is of great significance to water-scarce countries around the world, and there are many other requirements that come with it."

"Come on, let's take a walk and talk."

"it is good."

Globally, 224 countries and regions.

Among them, 80 countries and regions are seriously short of water.

Among 80 countries and regions, 20 are extremely water scarce.

Areas with extreme water shortages are mainly concentrated in the Middle East, which is "the richest in the world".

In order to alleviate water shortages, Middle Eastern countries will definitely be willing to pay for this technology and meet less stringent requirements.

What's more, this technology not only brings pure water, but also does not add additional burden to the environment.

This point is very important.

Today, as the population increases and resources become increasingly scarce, water will become extremely precious and even become a "weapon."

North America is a staunch pioneer in this line of thinking.

Through "water", they firmly control Mexico in Latin America.

For example, the Colorado River in North America flows through California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Texas and northern Mexico.

Annual runoff is 1640 million acre feet.

North America directly took away 1500 million, leaving only 140 million for Mexico.

What if Mexico disobeys?

Then all these 140 million people will be drained, leaving the northern area a thousand miles of wasteland and a large amount of farmland drying up.

Another example is Asan and Lao Ba.

Asan built the Archi Dam on the upper reaches of the Sutlej River that flows through the area between the two countries.

Asan's approach is to store water during dry periods and release floods during wet periods.

It directly caused 7 regions, 3132 villages, and 832 million people in Laoba to suffer from drought or floods all year round.

…………

Chang Le and Liu Chaoyang strolled on the golden beach of the island.

The beach scenery is beautiful.

The coconut trees stand tall and straight, their leaves glowing golden in the sun, contrasting with the blue sky and blue sea.

Chang Le asked: "How is the research on quantum computers going?"

"The progress has been very limited. The main reason is that the theory is flawed and not perfect enough." Liu Chaoyang replied:

"Academician Hu Huaishan has recently recruited many basic research PhDs from Jiangsu University and Qingbei University to join the team."

"He is ready to lead the team starting from the most basic theory and supplementing and improving it."

The dream of quantum computing is fascinating.

It has super powerful storage capabilities;

It has super powerful computing power, and only needs to calculate once to get all the results in parallel processing;

It also has the magical property of doubling its computing power with each additional qubit;

Coupled with the birth and application of room temperature superconducting materials, Academician Hu and his team have great enthusiasm and strong expectations.

Then, the ideal is very full.

The reality is very...

"Basic research? Is it very difficult?" Chang Le asked.

"It's very large. Room-temperature superconducting materials only make us more determined in the direction of superconducting quantum computers, but we still face the problem of imperfect basic theories." Liu Chaoyang nodded.

Liu Chaoyang further explained:

"There are about 20 manufacturing solutions for quantum computers in the world."

“Among them, in the field of superconducting quantum computers, Pingtouge Research Institute, Google, and IBM are researching;”

"Topological quantum computers are currently in the theoretical model stage, and Microsoft is following up;"

"In addition, there are ion trap quantum computers, optical quantum computers, etc..."

"Each solution has its own unique advantages and has good prospects in theory."

"However, each solution faces the same or similar problems."

Liu Chaoyang paused and continued: "All quantum computers face a big problem, which is the collapse of the wave function."

"Wave function collapse? What is it?" Chang Le didn't understand.

"Have you ever heard of Schrödinger's cat?" Liu Chaoyang gave an example.

"I probably know a little bit about this." Chang Le said.

"You can roughly understand it if you know a little bit. The reason why Schrödinger's cat can be in a superposition state of life and death is because the box is isolated from the world and has no observation." Liu Chaoyang explained:

"But any observation will bring the cat back to its original state, that is to say, it will change from a superposition state of life and death to a fixed state of life or death."

"Specifically applied to the field of quantum computers, qubits face the same problem."

"As long as there is a little disturbance from the outside world, these qubits will collapse into a certain state."

"In other words, there is originally a huge amount of calculation data in the qubit, but as soon as you observe it, these data will disappear instantly, leaving only one data."

"So, the result of the quantum computer, without you observing it, it calculated the correct result;"

"As soon as you observe it, the result will change, either '1' or '0'."

Chang Le: "..."