I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 133 Chemical Engineering
The next day, Zhu Houxuan continued to take Zhu Houzhao to visit the factory of Jingwang Mansion.

This time we went to the coking plant.

There are ten coking furnaces in Coking Plant No. 1, which can feed 30,000 kilograms of materials each time.

Zhu Houzhao watched a group of people busy around the ten huge furnaces and soon lost interest. "These furnaces are just a little bigger, but they don't seem to be that interesting, do they?"

"Don't be anxious, my royal brother. These furnaces produce good things. This is also one of the most core factories among my factories." Zhu Houxuan said while waving to the workers of the coking plant.

"When coal is coked in these furnaces, it comes out as coke, the main fuel for iron smelting." Zhu Houxuan patiently explained the significance of coke to Zhu Houzhao.

After listening to Zhu Houxun's explanation, Zhu Houzhao's eyes changed when he looked at the coking furnaces.

"And we also got other good things in the coking process." Zhu Houxuan led Zhu Houzhao to a coking oven.

In front of the coking oven, there was a hollow platform made of bricks, on the platform was a large iron can, with two iron pipes on both sides of the can, one for water inlet and the other for water outlet.

"The gases from the two furnaces are collected into this iron can through the flue. The water in the can provides cooling. The good stuff I'm talking about is in this can." Zhu Houxuan said with a smile.

"Really?" Zhu Hou watched a worker open the water outlet and carefully collect the flowing water into a jar on a carriage, and hurriedly went up to take a look out of curiosity.

As soon as I got close, I smelled a pungent smell. It was a pungent odor, a bit like the smell of rotten eggs or vegetables.

"What chimney? This is clearly the chimney of the two furnaces. They are used to fart. The smell is really strong." Zhu Houzhao complained while covering his nose.

"Why are you so anxious?" Zhu Houxuan handed over a mask helplessly.

Zhu Houzhao then realized that the workers around him were all wearing masks.
He quickly took the mask and put it on, and he felt much better now.

"How can such a smelly thing become a treasure?" Zhu Houzhao asked in a buzzing voice.

"Brother, this water is called ammonia water," Zhu Houxuan introduced it again.

For every 30,000 kilograms of coal produced in each furnace, in addition to producing 18,000 kilograms of coke, the rest of the material will not disappear out of thin air, but will turn into various by-products.

During the coal coking process, a lot of gases are produced, among which the flammable and explosive gases are burned, but various gases still remain, including ammonia and oil smoke.

This iron can is a condensation absorption tower.

Ammonia is easily soluble in water and has a very high solubility in water. Therefore, after the gas produced in the two coking furnaces enters the iron tank and is cooled by water, the ammonia dissolves in water, and the oil smoke forms tar after cooling. The density of tar is higher than that of water, so it settles to the bottom.

There is an oil outlet at the bottom of the tin can for discharging tar.

This is the same principle as the kitchen range hoods of later generations, which will produce a large amount of oil after cooling.

Tar is a light tar, close to the specifications of light diesel. If it is further distilled, it can produce products such as diesel and kerosene.

Unlike gasoline, kerosene is not easy to evaporate, but it will evaporate if it is not used for a long time or is not stored properly.

A furnace of 30,000 jin of coal can finally produce 1,500 jin of kerosene. Kerosene burns brightly and stably, and is ten times more durable than the sesame oil and soybean oil used for lighting in the Ming Dynasty. Ammonia is dissolved in water to obtain ammonia water, which cannot be placed under the sun and needs to be transported in a closed manner, otherwise it will decompose into ammonia and water.

These ammonia waters are not suitable for long-distance transportation, but by adding gypsum water, precipitating, and then heating and evaporating, the white particles obtained are ammonium sulfate, which is fertilizer.

The fertilizer effect of one pound of ammonium sulfate is equivalent to three hundred pounds of human feces.

One hundred kilograms of ammonia water can make four kilograms of solid ammonium sulfate. Combined with domestic fertilizer, one acre of land can increase crop production by 120 kilograms with a minimum usage of three kilograms.

"Wait!" Zhu Houzhao interrupted, "Three catties of that fertilizer you mentioned can increase the yield of one mu of land by 120 catties?"

There is no need to explain the importance of food in this era. He could understand the guano stone mentioned above, but making fertilizer from coal was really beyond his comprehension.

"Yes, this is an average value after we have used it on a large scale." Zhu Houxuan said confidently, "If you don't believe me, I will take you to see the farmland near Qizhou. You will understand if you compare the fields that have been fertilized with those that have not been fertilized."

In the Ming Dynasty, an average acre of land in Jiangnan could yield one and a half dan of grain, or about 300 kilograms. A sudden increase of 120 kilograms was simply shocking.

Zhu Houzhao was so shocked that he was speechless. He knew that Zhu Houxuan would never lie to him about such a thing.

It took him a while to come back to his senses, and he quickly asked, "What is the yield of this fertilizer?"

A coking plant has ten coke ovens, each with a coal load of 30,000 kilograms, which takes from 15 to 23 days. Without the workshop technology of later generations, coke cannot be produced quickly.

Later generations had fully automatic production lines and various sets of advanced equipment to accelerate the refining speed and adopt high temperature and cooling technologies that were unattainable in ancient times.

The main principle is to use high-temperature methods, as well as air-isolated distillation, etc. Now the traditional medium and low temperature methods are used, so the production cycle is long.

Zhu Houxun's coking plant could produce 30,000 kilograms of fuel per furnace, and it would still take 15 days to produce it even under the best conditions.

During the firing and cooling process, the gas produced, the moisture in the coal, and the clean water used in the furnace, ten coke ovens can produce 7,200 kilograms of ammonia water every day.

That is to say, 288 kilograms, nearly 300 kilograms of ammonium sulfate per day, 9,000 kilograms per month, and the annual output is 110,000 kilograms.

It is enough for nearly 37,000 acres of land and can increase the amount of grain by more than 4 million jin, or more than 20,000 shi.

Zhu Houzhao calmed down after hearing this number. He saw that there were thousands of workers in the coking plant, but it could produce 300 kilograms of fertilizer a day. The fertilizer produced by such a large coking plant in a year could only be used on 37,000 acres of land.

The Ming Dynasty now has 1200 million hectares of farmland, 12 billion mu of land, and more than such coking plants are needed to allow all the fields in the Ming Dynasty to use fertilizers. Moreover, where can we find so much coal with so many coking plants? Therefore, it is not worth the cost to build such coking plants specifically to produce fertilizers.

However, Zhu Houzhao changed his mind and realized that the main function of this coking plant was to produce coke, and kerosene and fertilizers were just incidental.

He looked at the bustling coke plant and became more and more shocked.

This is the most primitive coal chemical industry established by Zhu Houxuan. In fact, this thing has no technical threshold except coking itself, but it can profoundly change the current Ming Dynasty. This is the power of industry.

(End of this chapter)