Chapter 231 An Extraordinary October
Magic City, Institute of Atomic Nuclear Research, Academy of Sciences.
Xu Chuan found an office and took eight selected scientific researchers to explain to them the 'atomic cycle' theory and the basics of the development of new radiation-resistant materials, as well as some things that need to be paid attention to in preliminary experiments.
"For radiation-resistant materials, the ionization effect carried by strong nuclear radiation itself is the biggest problem. It can destroy the grain boundaries, molecular structure, neutral atoms, etc. of the material, thereby causing embrittlement, accelerated creep, phase Instability, accelerated corrosion and other consequences.”
"Atomic recycling technology is a theory based on ionizing radiation and ionization effects."
"This theory will reduce the difficulty of forming grain boundaries by adding some compounds to improve the charge distribution of the space charge layer, control the phase morphology of the grain boundary, and form grain boundary channels that are conducive to ion migration, while ensuring the largest grain size of the radiation-resistant material. This ensures that the material can self-restore its structure after being ionized by nuclear radiation and has a longer radiation resistance time."
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Although these things have been written in great detail in previous papers, he still chose to go through them again to these researchers, and by the way, solve some of their doubts.
On the one hand, it is to cultivate talents, and on the other hand, it is to speed up the progress of subsequent experiments.
In front of the projection screen, Xu Chuan continued to explain the key details of the 'atomic cycle' theory. In the conference room, nine scientific researchers, including Han Jin, listened carefully.
Since Jing Kangle and Sun Heng were kicked off, the enthusiasm of the entire small team has increased a lot again.
It was immediately clear to everyone that this young-looking boss meant every word he said.
He said that if there is a test, the test will really come. He said that the test will determine whether they can join the team. Those who fail the test will not really come in even if they pass the interview.
In fact, in the workplace, doing your job conscientiously is the most basic requirement, but many people can't do it now.
Just like acting in the entertainment industry, memorizing lines can be said to be the most basic requirement, but some young freshmen who have no acting skills and don't want to work hard, rely on their high wealth and nao residual fans to start 123456789
This is extremely unhealthy for the entire environment.
Xu Chuan has no ability to change the entire environment, but he has the ability to ensure that his small group is in a healthy state.
"Professor, I have a question."
In the conference room, a scientific researcher raised his right hand nervously.
Xu Chuan followed the voice and looked over. The one who raised his hand was a younger-looking researcher.
He nodded and signaled the other party to ask questions: "Please tell me."
The researcher stood up nervously and took two deep breaths to suppress the tension in his heart before asking.
"Professor, you mentioned before that the grain boundary effect of materials can be used to resist nuclear radiation, but the grain boundary effect is exclusive to ceramic materials. If this is the case, other subsequent materials, including some soft body resistance materials, may not be able to have this advantage. of."
Xu Chuan smiled and said, "I'm glad you have your own thoughts and can put them forward."
"The grain boundary effect is indeed an exclusive property of ceramic materials, but it does not mean that it cannot be applied to other materials."
"We all know that countermeasure materials will be bombarded by high-energy particles, such as neutrons and gamma particles, in service environments, resulting in a large amount of off-site damage, including vacancies and self-interstitial atoms."
"These off-site defects and corresponding clusters degrade material performance or even fail, restricting the stability of the material."
"When previous multi-scale simulations revealed the microscopic mechanism of the interaction between defects and interfaces, they often only focused on basic atomic processes, such as diffusion, segregation, recombination, etc."
"However, under actual service conditions, countermeasures materials often need to withstand a certain dose of cumulative radiation."
While explaining, Xu Chuan wrote a line on the blackboard in the conference room.
[Cumulative ex-situ damage of nanomaterials-grain boundary gap loading and grain boundary irradiation effects. 】
After writing, he turned to look at the researcher who asked the question with a smile, and continued: "Traditional countermeasure materials will indeed appear various defects caused by various ionizing radiation when faced with high-energy nuclear radiation."
"But when we reduce the structure of materials to the nanometer level, everything will be different."
"I have seen and studied things in this area at Princeton. A lot of research materials and experimental data show that nanostructured materials, especially nanocrystalline materials, have good radiation resistance."
"This is due to the large number of grain boundaries in such materials that can capture radiation defects and promote their recombination, thereby reducing the accumulation of radiation damage in the material matrix."
"For example, in iron metal, when the grain boundaries are reorganized through nanotechnology, the iron grain boundaries have the ability to effectively capture vacancies and self-interstitial atoms and promote their recombination under higher irradiation temperatures or lower dose rates. , Reduce the accumulation of radiation defects inside the grain, thereby achieving the ability to repair radiation damage.”
"In addition, when the radiation gaps at the iron grain boundaries accumulate to a certain concentration, during the relaxation process of the grain boundaries, part of the gaps disappear and a new grain boundary structure phase is formed. As the irradiation dose increases, the gaps continue to accumulate, accompanied by Following the local movement of the grain boundary, it gradually returns to its original state."
"I think you all should know what this means."
As he spoke, Xu Chuan turned his attention to the researcher who was still standing and looked at him with a smile.
"This means that this kind of counteractive material will not only suffer from grain boundary corrosion when exposed to nuclear radiation, but also can achieve grain boundary repair!"
The standing researcher blurted out without thinking, with a look of disbelief on his face.
After hearing this, the faces of other researchers in the conference room, including the person in charge Han Jin, were filled with disbelief, confusion, doubt and other emotions.
Nuclear radiation can repair the grain boundary of materials?
Are you kidding?
The strong ionization characteristics of nuclear radiation itself can destroy the molecular atomic structure of almost all materials, causing pores at the grain boundary of materials, atomic loss and defects.
Even containers made of high-density and extremely stable metals such as lead will gradually have various problems when facing nuclear radiation for a long time.
This can be said to be a rule.
If not for this, humans would not be unable to find a perfect way to deal with nuclear waste.
The inherent destructiveness of nuclear radiation can make it corrode all materials.
But now Xu Chuan told them that nuclear radiation is not only destructive, but also has repairability.
It has to be said that this is an extremely shocking news. For a while, everyone was in surprise and confusion.
Looking at the researchers in the conference room, Xu Chuan smiled.
In his previous life, he was doing the experiment of "Nuclear Energy β Radiation Energy Convergence and Conversion Mechanism" at an atomic energy experimental institution in California, USA. When he first came to this conclusion, he was also unbelievable.
But later, after repeated verification of this conclusion many times and confirming that there was no problem, he finally determined that nanomaterials made by special means have more advantages than conventional materials in resisting nuclear radiation.
And it was this unexpected discovery that finally allowed him to perfect the "atomic cycle" technology, develop different countermeasure materials, and find a technology that can reuse waste nuclear materials.
It can be said that the accumulated off-site damage of nanomaterials-grain boundary interstitial loading and grain boundary irradiation effect is the real core of the "Nuclear Energy β Radiation Energy Convergence and Conversion Mechanism" technology.
Originally, he planned to let other researchers discover it themselves during the material experiment, but he didn't expect that someone would pay attention to this aspect now.
This made him very interested, and he also remembered the name of the researcher who asked the question in his heart, and prepared to focus on training him in the future.
For this researcher, this is an opportunity.
Perhaps there are other people in this group of eight people who have also noticed this problem.
But many times, opportunities also need to be fought for by oneself.
Burying the problem in the bottom of your heart has no other value except to bother yourself.
But raising it, sometimes you can not only get answers, but also be appreciated.
The last day of September passed during Xu Chuan's explanation.
During the Golden Week in October, Xu Chuan gave the researchers of the nuclear energy research and development team a holiday. On the one hand, it was National Day, and they would have a regular holiday. On the other hand, it was to let them digest the various knowledge he explained in the past two days.
As for himself, he returned to Jinling.
The nuclear energy research and development team had a holiday, but the Chuanhai Materials Laboratory did not have a holiday. They were working overtime during the Golden Week.
There was no way, his time was very tight.
Working on multiple lines meant that he had little time to rest.
Based on the perfect theory + Xu Chuan, the "prophet", the research and development of lithium battery electrolyte materials and artificial SEI films has entered the regular stage.
After Xu Chuan collected the work content of these days and read it, he also joined the experiment.
He joined the research and development of artificial SEI films.
Compared with electrolytes, artificial SEI films are the focus.
It is used to solve the biggest and most difficult problem of "lithium dendrites" in lithium batteries.
In the lithium battery industry, lithium dendrites are the biggest problem and the fundamental problem that affects the safety, stability and electromagnetic capacity of lithium-ion batteries.
It is a dendritic metal lithium formed when lithium ions are reduced during the charging process of lithium batteries, and generally appears at the negative electrode of the battery.
The growth of lithium dendrites will lead to instability of the interface between the electrode and the electrolyte during the cycle of lithium-ion batteries, destroying the generated solid electrolyte interface (SEI) film. It may even pierce the diaphragm and cause a short circuit inside the lithium-ion battery, causing thermal runaway of the battery and causing combustion and explosion.
Moreover, during the growth process, lithium dendrites will continuously consume electrolyte and cause irreversible deposition of metallic lithium, forming dead lithium and causing low coulomb efficiency.
In reality, the battery will gradually decrease in power after being used for a long time.
This is particularly evident in mobile phones.
The battery of a newly purchased mobile phone can support one day of operation, but after one or two years, the battery can only support half a day of operation or even less.
And artificial SEI film is one of the ways to solve the problem of lithium dendrites.
It can prevent lithium ions from gathering at the negative electrode, so that they cannot form lithium dendrites, thus solving this problem.
In this way, the negative electrode material of the lithium battery can be replaced with lithium metal with higher capacity.
Not to mention how many times the battery capacity of the lithium battery can be increased after solving the problem of lithium dendrites, even if it is only doubled, it can make the whole world crazy.
If the energy density of the current battery is doubled, it means that the battery life of various electrical appliances will be doubled without changing the appearance, increasing the load, or sacrificing comfort.
The standby time of mobile phones and computers is doubled, and the range of electric vehicles is doubled.
Such an attractive prospect will drive mobile phone suppliers and electric car manufacturers crazy.
As for the electrolyte, Xu Chuan will leave it for the next generation of lithium batteries.
After solving the problem of lithium dendrites, the lithium-ion batteries currently on the market can be upgraded to lithium metal batteries, and after lithium metal batteries, there are lithium sulfur batteries and lithium air batteries with higher energy density.
Generation after generation of continuous innovation is enough for him to completely control the huge market of lithium batteries.
During the National Day holiday, Xu Chuan helped Yu Zhen, who was responsible for the research and development of artificial SEI film materials, to improve the research and development progress in the Chuanhai Laboratory. He would be busy until 9:00 every night.
Of course, overtime work must be paid for overtime. He is not the kind of black-hearted capitalist who can't do unpaid overtime.
In addition to the five times overtime pay of 3+2, Xu Chuan also agreed to compensatory vacation.
As long as the relevant R&D projects are completed, the corresponding personnel can take paid vacations, and they will make up for the number of days of overtime.
With such benefits, the scientific researchers in the laboratory are like chicken blood, and they can endure more than Xu Chuan.
However, under such circumstances, the research and development of both electrolyte materials and artificial SEI film materials have made rapid progress.
Based on a detailed theoretical foundation, under the leadership of Xu Chuan, the Chuanhai Materials Research Institute has produced a small batch of synthetic materials required for the first generation of artificial SEI films.
Late at night, in the laboratory of Chuanhai Materials Research Institute, Xu Chuan finished the last task in his hands, sorted out the experimental equipment, took off his mask and goggles, and said to the other people busy in the room:
"Today's work ends here, everyone go back and rest early, tomorrow we will officially start the synthesis of artificial SEI films."
Before he finished speaking, the door of the laboratory was hurriedly pushed open.
Xu Chuan turned his head and looked at the person who broke in, which surprised him a little. It turned out to be the president of Nanjing University, Liu Gaojun, and his mentor Chen Zhengping.
Seeing Xu Chuan, their eyes lit up and they quickly walked over, panting and saying in unison: "How come you can't get through on the phone when you're not asleep!"
Looking at the two people who rushed in, Xu Chuan looked at them in confusion and asked: "I'm doing an experiment here, my phone is in shielding mode, I didn't pay much attention, what's wrong? Did something happen?"
Hearing this answer, Chen Zhengping said excitedly: "You won the award, you know! The award call has been called to the school!"
On the side, Liu Gaojun quickly added: "Nobel Prize!"