Chapter 296 Magmillan: You Are a Lunatic!

At NTU, in his office, Xu Chuan received the dean of the Department of Chemistry from Princeton.

"Welcome, Director Magmillan." Xu Chuan warmly shook hands with the middle-aged man wearing square-framed black glasses.

To say they knew each other, they actually knew each other, but this was the first time in their lives that they met. As for his previous life, he had communicated with the Magmillan director several times because of his involvement in materials science.

It has to be said that in the field of materials chemistry, Magmillan's strength is indeed among the best in the world.

In 2021, two years later, the chairman of the Princeton Department of Chemistry will receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his huge contributions to 'asymmetric organocatalysis'.

This achievement has greatly promoted the development of chemical catalysis technology, especially in biomedicine, and has made great achievements. Various drugs prepared using this technology have saved countless patients.

What's more important is that he is still young. He was born in 1968 and is only in his fifties this year. He was not over fifty-five when he won the Nobel Prize. Among all the Nobel Prize winners, he can be said to be very young. .

"Xu, I'm glad to see you. You look much younger than those photos in the news. Are you really only twenty-three years old? You are younger than most of the students I teach. It's incredible."

David Magmillan shook hands, looked Xu Chuan up and down, and praised with surprise.

Xu Chuan smiled and said: "Thank you. Sit down first. Would you like some tea or coffee?"

"As the Romans do, that's what they say, right? Let's have a cup of tea and let me try the magic of this thing that all Chinese people love to drink." Magmillan said with a smile.

Xu Chuan smiled and stood up to make tea and said: "Of course, drinking tea has many benefits. It is rich in catechins, cholesterol, caffeine, inositol and many other beneficial substances for the human body. elements, can lower blood pressure, lose weight, detoxify, reduce cardiovascular disease, etc.”

"The most important thing is that for scientific researchers like us, it can refresh our minds, improve the efficiency of our brains, and maintain focus during the scientific research process."

With an interested look on his face, Magmillan said with a smile: "That makes me really eager to try it."

The daily work of scientific researchers consumes a lot of brains, which is why many scientific researchers become bald at a young age. Something that can keep the brain awake and improve brain work efficiency is still very helpful to them.

If it really has the effect that Professor Xu said, he might be able to study the chemicals in the tea and see if they can be extracted.

After serving two cups of tea, the two exchanged pleasantries and got down to business.

"Xu, I'm very interested in the computational mathematical model of chemical materials you mentioned. I don't know when is it convenient for me to go to the Materials Research Institute under your name to have a look?"

Holding the tea cup, Magmillan asked impatiently after the two chatted for a while.

Xu Chuan smiled and said, "You can do it at any time, but you have come all the way and have been on a plane for dozens of hours. Do you want to take a rest first?"

David Magmillan quickly shook his head and said: "No, I am more looking forward to the model you built than I am tired. If it can really achieve the effect you said, I will try my best to convince Christopher Isgru Cloth."

Christopher Isgrub is the president of Princeton and a member of the board of trustees. With his support, this cooperation can be said to be stable.

Xu Chuan nodded, drank the tea in the cup in one gulp, and said with a smile: "Then we can set off now."

With the eager dean of the chemistry department, Xu Chuan rushed to the Sichuan-Hai Materials Research Institute. After making a phone call, the burly and majestic senior brother Fan Pengyue rushed over soon.

"This is David Magmillan, the director of the Department of Chemistry at Princeton, and this is Fan Pengyue, the director of the Sichuan-Hai Institute of Materials Research."

While walking towards the laboratory, Xu Chuan briefly introduced each other and asked: "Brother Fan, is there any update or patch for the chemical material calculation model today?"

An initially crude model, updates are common.

And because it needs to be filled with key information data of various basic materials and experimental updates, the chemical material calculation model is updated very frequently, almost two or three times a week.

Fan Pengyue: "There is no update plan today, but if you want to conduct simulation, I recommend using the previous version of the model."

"Two days ago, Yu Zhen and the others integrated part of the data on silicon-based materials, but the latest version of the simulation test found that the process was a bit unstable, and the simulated response deviated from the actual experimental response. It is still being debugged."

Xu Chuan nodded and said, "Okay."

On the second floor of the laboratory, a group of people came to the office dedicated to modeling. The office was not very big. On the one hand, the preliminary work was not that big, and on the other hand, Xu Chuan did not have much money to expand the laboratory before.

Most of the money he got from winning papers in the past was invested in the research institute.

Fortunately, the patent licensing fee for the artificial SEI film has been paid, and now they can move to the new office address after it is settled.

In the office, Fan Pengyue called a programmer who was busy testing the model. With his help, a backed up old version of the mathematical model was opened on the computer.

Watching the mathematical model running in the hands of the programmer and introducing the corresponding functions, Magmillan asked: "Can you simulate the material development process?"

Xu Chuan nodded and said: "Yes, but the current model has only been developed and processed not long ago. It does not have many functions. It can only analyze and combine the materials already in the database, and carry out some early use. Material simulation work.”

"Currently, there is not a wide range of simulation materials that can be simulated. They are mainly compound materials such as lithium, carbon, and fluorine, and certain conditions need to be manually given for the time being."

"Lithium batteries should be within your data range, right?" Magmillan asked.

Xu Chuan nodded and said: "Most of the materials for lithium batteries are there, and they have been sorted out before. But organic solvents are not included at the moment. After all, there are too many types, and we can't process them all in a while."

"Is there any data on carbon-aluminum foil coated with conductive coating? Is it possible to simulate the carbon-aluminum coating?"

After thinking about it, Magmillan selected one of the lithium battery materials and asked.

Carbon-aluminum coating materials are important or unimportant in lithium batteries. It is a new technology that has only appeared in the past two years.

It mainly uses carbon-aluminum functional coating to surface treat the battery conductive substrate to provide excellent static conductive performance and collect the microcurrent of the active material, which can greatly reduce the contact resistance between the positive/negative electrode material and the current collector, etc. wait.

It can improve the performance of lithium batteries to a certain extent, but it is not a necessary item in lithium batteries. It can run normally without it, but the performance will decrease.

On the side, Fan Pengyue replied on behalf of Xu Chuan: "Yes, the relevant data of composite coatings and carbon-aluminum materials have been entered. If you want to see it, Professor Magmillan, we can do a simple simulation of the research and development process. "

"Then use carbon aluminum coating."

Fan Pengyue: "Are there any performance requirements?"

"Can you also set and select the performance of carbon-aluminum coating sheets?" Magmillan asked in surprise.

"Theoretically speaking, it is possible, but currently it is not possible to perfectly simulate the performance sheet you require. After all, it is only a basic and crude model for the time being." Xu Chuan replied with a shrug.

Magmillan thought for a while and said: "Then the thickness of the aluminum foil is required to be in the range of 10 to 30 μm, the thickness of the SuperP conductive layer is in the range of 0.3 to 0.9 μm, and the thickness of the graphene conductive layer is in the range of 0.5 to 1.2 μm. The thickness of the mixed conductive layer is 0.3~2μm”

Magmillan quickly screened the performance parameters of some carbon-aluminum sheets in his mind, and he was now increasingly curious about what the simple model in front of him could achieve.

Fan Pengyue nodded, turned around and ordered the programmer to start inputting these parameters into the mathematical model, and then began to simulate and develop carbon-aluminum coating materials.

On the screen, after the programmer entered various parameters and requirements into the model, the crude mathematical model began to run automatically.

Although the appearance of other models is very simple, this model is actually quite large. The number of lines of code is quite large, and the development of the model took more than half a year.

Moreover, the model was not developed and written by the Chuanhai Institute of Materials, but was outsourced to a well-known software company. It cost nearly 11 million to complete a basic version. It can be said that the money spent on modeling alone, It’s almost enough to buy another Sichuan-Hai Materials Research Institute.

But what can I say, if you spend money, the quality is definitely guaranteed.

The group of people waited in the office for about an hour and a half before the simulation research and development of carbon-aluminum coating materials was completed.

The detailed data after operation has been saved in the corresponding file, and everyone will have a copy after printing it out.

After taking the document from the staff, Magmillan couldn't wait to read it.

A detailed preparation method of carbon-coated aluminum foil, including the following steps:

S1: Preprocess the aluminum foil body.

The detailed treatment plan is as follows: [S1. The preferred plan for treating the aluminum foil body. The thickness standard is 100%. Use acetic acid to remove dirt and impurities on the surface of the aluminum foil. 】

S2: Mix the binder and solvent evenly, then add two or more conductive agents and mix evenly to obtain a composite conductive slurry.

The detailed treatment plan is as follows: [S2, the preferred plan for preparing composite conductive paste, use polytetrafluoroethylene or polyvinylidene fluoride.]

S3: Put the composite conductive slurry into the electrospinning device, spray the aluminum foil, and then dry to obtain the first layer of composite carbon-coated aluminum foil;

The detailed treatment plan is as follows: [S3, the preferred plan for the preparation of the first layer of composite carbon-coated aluminum foil, use sodium tripolyphosphate. The electrostatic spraying voltage is 15-20kv, the solution flow rate is 0.5-3ml·h-1, the electrospinning nozzle and the aluminum foil The distance is 0.5-10cm]

S4:.

S5:.

In the office, MacMillan looked at the plan in his hand with shock in his eyes.

The plan in hand not only gives a quite detailed preparation process, but also gives a preferred plan for each step, including the selection and treatment of materials, what kind of equipment is needed, the requirements for equipment, temperature, pressure, etc. during the treatment process. Reference information is given in other aspects.

More importantly, there is more than one solution given by the model.

The document in his hand listed three feasible preparation options.

Although the preparation methods given in this plan are not all perfect in his eyes, and there are still many places that can be optimized, this is a miracle in itself.

Of course, if all the steps are manually input in advance, it is nothing, but it is obvious that the mathematical model in front of him does not adopt such a method.

McMillan has never thought that a model can achieve this level, relying on mathematical models to complete all the steps such as material selection, calculation, optimization, etc. How is this possible!

After flipping through the solution given by the computational model in his hand, he couldn't wait to ask: "My God, how did you do it!"

Xu Chuan put down the copy in his hand and explained with a smile: "This is the charm of the combination of mathematics, physics and chemistry. It can bring us a brand new world."

"Of course, it is not perfect now and needs a lot of optimization. But I believe that one day, it can change the whole world!"

"By then, the research and development of materials will no longer rely entirely on experience and exploration. We can hand over the corresponding needs to computers to complete, which will save us a lot of time."

Hearing this, David McGmillan looked at Xu Chuan and swallowed his saliva involuntarily, saying: "This is really an extremely crazy plan! You are a lunatic! Have you ever thought that you will make a large number of material developers unemployed!"

If according to the description of the person in front of him, if this model is really completed, it will subvert the development of the entire material industry.

Of course, breakthroughs in materials may also follow.

But at the same time, it can be foreseen that R&D personnel in the materials industry, especially those basic personnel, will most likely be unemployed on a large scale.

After all, if this model can be completed, perhaps most of the basic work of future material research and development can be handed over to this model.

In this way, many of the jobs of those grassroots researchers will be replaced.

Of course, for a top researcher engaged in chemical materials, it is undoubtedly a fatal attraction!

Because it can save more time and provide many different reference opinions from a scientific perspective.

Just like the simulation of carbon-coated aluminum foil today, after just waiting for more than an hour and a half, this model gave several different solutions.

If the experiment is conducted manually, it will take at least several days or even more time to complete.

Across from him, Xu Chuan smiled and said, "In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with this."

"Humans are creative creatures, especially as researchers and scholars who have mastered cutting-edge knowledge, they should focus their attention and energy on breakthroughs rather than repeating those drudgery that can be easily replaced."

"And this model can theoretically save a lot of time to a great extent, and can even combine the most optimized solutions, but it can't replace material developers."

"The most cutting-edge and top breakthroughs are always related to people, and human creativity can never be replaced by current computers."

"Including the solutions it gives, in fact, they all need people to test and experiment, so it will always be just an auxiliary tool and can't replace human existence."

After a pause, he continued, "And as time goes by, even if I don't do it, someone will come to do this job."