Chapter 1223 Helium 3

Chapter 1223 Helium-3

Helium-3 is one of the isotopes of helium, with the element symbol 3He.

A researcher said: “After getting this piece of lunar soil, we are trying to extract as much as possible what we need to verify.

We heated the processed lunar soil to over 700 degrees Celsius and extracted helium-3.

In research reports in related fields, experts like them speculate that the helium-3 content on the moon is estimated to be about 1 million tons or more. However, if we only use the data we currently have in experiments, combined with our use of Loki servers and some supercomputing resources, It is speculated that the moon, at least for now, has a total of no less than three million tons of helium-3 in the soil and shallow rocks on the lunar surface! "

A professor next to him also said: "We didn't expect that the official provided me with more than one gram of lunar soil, lunar rock and other specimens, which is better than nothing, so we could choose such a wasteful inspection method.

Moreover, helium-3, as an isotope of helium, contains two protons and one neutron. According to the dilution refrigeration theory, when helium-3 and helium-4 are mixed in a certain ratio, the temperature can be reduced to infinitely close to absolute zero. When the temperature reaches below 2.6mK, liquid helium-3 will also exhibit a 'superfluid' phenomenon.

That is to say, even if it is placed on a smooth vessel without any stickiness, it can even 'climb' out of the smooth vessel. In many material fields, it plays an extremely important role.

Superfluids also have extremely strange applications in astrophysics.

We can use the helium-3 superfluid produced by phase transitions to test theories about how so-called cosmic strings are formed, and to advance research in condensed matter physics, like the nuclear magnetic resonance method that was discovered when studying helium-3. "

After hearing what the professor said, Gu Qing nodded.

Now, MRI tomography has become one of the important technologies for medical diagnosis in large hospitals. He knew that the professor wanted to carry out multiple developments in these fields so that he could invest more resources.

But as the founder of Kyushu Technology, who can control huge research resources with just one word, Gu Qing has more than one professor beside him?

There was a professor next to him who snorted coldly and said: "There are no neutrons in the helium-3 thermonuclear reactor, so when we use helium-3 as energy, we don't need to worry about radiation problems. This is the most important thing, its energy potential!"

Then, the professor pointed to the material on the test bench and said in a longing tone as if discussing with Gu Qing: "Helium-3 can undergo nuclear fusion reactions with other isotopes of hydrogen, and unlike other nuclear fusion reactions, helium-3 -3 does not produce neutrons during the fusion process, so it has low radioactivity. This also brings another benefit, that is, the reaction process is easy to control, environmentally friendly and safe.

It’s just that this thing looks very beautiful. We have even actually verified and speculated that there are more than three million tons of helium-3 on the surface of the moon. But Mr. Gu, you may not know that helium-3 is basically a gas. form, scattered and hidden in the pores of lunar rocks and lunar soil, and its concentration is only between 1.4 and 15 ppb.

We made a conversion. To obtain 10 grams of helium-3 gas, we need to carefully crush and filter at least 1,500 tons of lunar rocks and soil, then heat them to above 700°C in special equipment, and then pass them through a series of Only by technical means can 10 grams of helium-3 gas be obtained.

Assuming that the energy conversion efficiency of helium-3 is impossible to exist at 100%, then these 10 grams of helium-3 can only allow a million-kilowatt nuclear power plant to generate electricity for a few hours. "

"Um?"

Seeing the strange look on Gu Qing's expression, the professor spoke more seriously.

“What they are talking about is the mining of lunar soil and rocks, as if the moon is like the vegetable field next door, which can be reached with your hands.

But in reality, if we want to retrieve helium-3 from the moon, we must not only consider the costs of lunar soil mining, exhaust, isotope separation, and transportation back to the earth, but also the technologies we need to master.

After all, this is countless times more difficult than simply sending people up to explore the moon.

But what is meaningful is that according to the proportion of helium-3 we extract, if we can extract helium-3 directly on the moon, then if we extract 1 ton of helium-3 from the lunar soil, we can get about 6,300 tons of hydrogen, 70 tons of nitrogen and 1,600 tons of carbon. These secondary resources can provide an extremely loose material supply for our lunar base.

For example, hydrogen can be combined with nitrogen to generate ammonia, reduce metal ores, produce hydrochloric acid, and can also be used to convert unsaturated fats into saturated oils and fats. Hydrogen can be used to make hydrogenated vegetable oils, which can meet food needs such as margarine and butter.

There is also atomic hydrogen welding. In a hydrogen protective atmosphere, the arc welding process between two metal tungsten electrodes can be used to weld refractory metals and tungsten, which is extremely important in the maintenance of aviation equipment.

Some of our generators can also use hydrogen as the rotor coolant, which has low density, high thermal conductivity and high specific heat capacity.

Due to the large scale of production, hydrogen peroxide can also be produced, which is a conventional antiseptic commonly used in clinical and hospital settings. It is particularly suitable for cleaning wounds, incisions and other damaged tissue parts, and can also be used to purify water under special circumstances.

These by-products are also extremely necessary to maintain a permanent base on the moon. And the examples I am giving now are only a very small part. Once we achieve self-sufficiency on a permanent base on the moon, with the engineering technology we now have, we can build a complete industrial base city on the moon in a short time.

And you may know that there is currently no substantive confirmation of the rights to outer space resources other than Blue Star. We can build cities on the moon and achieve true independence. "

Gu Qing looked at the excited professor in front of him with some solemn eyes. In the display interface of SR1, this professor had an excellent resume. He was a 25-year-old Ph.D. and subsequently made significant contributions to Xia Ke Academy. At the age of ten, five years ago, my temperament changed suddenly.

The reason why he was able to enter this research base was due to his extremely solid research strength, and also because the Titanium Department cured the illness of the professor's family.

But this description…

The young boss Gu said to the professor with some concern: "Professor Zhao, although the rights to the moon are not confirmed, we project participants have identities, and we are all Daxia people.

As a Daxia enterprise, our Jiuzhou Technology needs to confirm the rights to the production and investment projects we participate in, as well as other resources and products obtained through lunar resources, so that we can achieve interoperability with other Blue Star businesses. "