Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 228 Layout of Streptomycin

For the next few days, Lelouch stayed temporarily in Frankfurt, enjoying good food and drink at the Farben Chemicals' guesthouse every day.

Just two or three days later, although the technical problems to be solved on this trip had not been completely resolved, some ideas and directions for solving the problems had been put forward.

The scientists and engineers at Fabben Chemicals also held the general who came from the military to give them the mission in high esteem.

The winter suitability issues facing Demand's armored forces can be broken down into two parts: the first is that diesel fuel is prone to freezing, and the second is that other essential engine fluids, such as lubricating oil and engine coolant, are prone to freezing.

These were questions that no one had been studying in early 1916.

In those days, there was no concern about the compatibility of cars in extreme environments. If a car couldn't start in the dead of winter, people would simply take a horse-drawn carriage. Everyone considered this a normal occurrence, not a problem that needed to be solved.

However, for a time traveler, after visiting a gas station a few times, they would know that diesel fuel in the future comes in both 0-octane and -10-octane grades. With a little common sense, they would know that to lower the freezing point of diesel fuel, the paraffin content must be reduced.

Because the solubility of paraffin in diesel fuel drops sharply at low temperatures, the paraffin will precipitate out at slightly lower temperatures.

Besides reducing the proportion of paraffin residue in the oil refining process, another emergency measure is to mix a portion of kerosene into the diesel fuel.

Kerosene mixed with diesel can still ignite under compression in a diesel engine, as long as the kerosene ratio isn't too high and the main component remains diesel. Kerosene's freezing point is -40 degrees Celsius. Mixing kerosene with diesel can adjust the freezing point to between 0 and -40 degrees Celsius. The higher the diesel ratio, the closer the freezing point is to 0 degrees Celsius, and the higher the kerosene ratio, the closer the freezing point is to -40 degrees Celsius.

Adding just 20-30% kerosene will prevent diesel fuel from solidifying or separating at -15 degrees Celsius. This will allow it to adapt to most environments in future operations in Poland and even western Russo. However, if extreme weather conditions below -20 degrees Celsius are encountered, the offensive will have to be abandoned.

There is no way to completely prevent freezing. A simple technical method that can lower the freezing threshold by ten or twenty degrees is already quite good.

Therefore, the idea of ​​"further catalyzing the cracking of paraffin components during the refining and cracking of petroleum" was quickly submitted to the relevant R&D department of Fabbon Chemicals. This will require many years of effort and improvements to the entire oil refining process, but if it is successfully implemented, it will undoubtedly be beneficial in every way. It will not only make diesel fuel more usable, but also allow crude oil to be refined to produce a higher proportion of gasoline, kerosene, diesel, and other high-value components.

For now, they are temporarily relying on "diesel mixed with kerosene" as an emergency solution.

Lelouch's brief reminders played a decisive role, saving the engineers at Farben Chemicals from many detours.

These are all explanations that can be obtained by simply visiting a gas station a few times in the future and chatting with the staff before refueling—although when the gas station staff in the future told Lelouch these things, their intention was simply to better promote the product and let consumers know "why diesel that is more resistant to freezing should be more expensive."

Having developed a technical approach to address the issue of diesel fuel freezing, the next challenge was preventing the tank's lubricating oil and coolant from freezing. At that time, there were no specialized coolants; many tanks simply used water for cooling, which freezes instantly at zero degrees Celsius.

To solve this problem, the natural approach is to add other components with freezing points below zero to the cooling water, ideally lowering the freezing point of the aqueous solution containing these components.

As a time traveler, Lelouch naturally knew that the most commonly used antifreeze in later times was ethylene glycol—it's said that during World War II in Earth's timeline, many USSR tank crewmen might have secretly drunk ethylene glycol antifreeze when vodka and alcohol supplies were unavailable, because they thought ethylene glycol and ethanol tasted somewhat similar. As for whether ethylene glycol had any slight toxicity, many stubborn individuals didn't care.

However, to avoid appearing well-prepared or suspected of framing General Rodendorff, Lelouch did not immediately give the correct answer, "ethylene glycol." Instead, he pretended to have a flash of inspiration and gave two more easily thought-provoking options.

He suggested that the people at Faben Chemicals could try mixing alcohol or glycerin into the coolant and lubricating oil.

Alcohol is ethanol, and glycerol is glycerol; both are the most common liquid alcohols, so it's reasonable to think of these two options first.

Finally, after a brief experiment, the engineers at Fabon Chemicals found that ethanol was indeed effective, but it was relatively expensive and required a large amount to be added, and it was also prone to evaporation and loss in hot weather.

While glycerin has lower volatility and less waste, it is not as effective at lowering the freezing point.

Ultimately, based on the deduction of chemical properties, engineers naturally came up with "ethylene glycol," a substance whose chemical properties are between "ethanol" and "glycerol," and began to produce this additive to prevent lubricating oil and coolant from freezing.

In less than a week, Lelouch helped the people at Farben Chemicals find a preliminary solution and pointed out a long-term path to improve petroleum refining technology.

……

After hearing that General Lelouch helped expedite the resolution of the diesel fuel antifreeze and tank lubricant and coolant antifreeze issues,

Even Fritz Haber, the big boss of Faben, couldn't help but look at Lelouch with even more admiration.

"General Lelouch is truly knowledgeable and insightful. It is an honor for Farben Chemistry to receive your guidance," Fritz Haber remarked sincerely.

Lelouch: "We're all working for the Empire. If I have any ideas, I'm not going to keep them to myself. I'll share them to spark discussion. I didn't actually solve any problems directly. It was your company's engineers who worked hard to come up with the final technical solution."

Fritz Haber: "I remember that day you said you had some other ideas, but they weren't ready yet. Let's get down to business first, then we can talk about these long-term plans. Now that we've finished with the business, let's talk about those other ideas. With the success of the sulfonamide drug and these recent projects, I can say that I have absolute trust in your judgment, General."

Upon hearing this, Lelouch remained silent for a while, organizing his thoughts.

When he came this time, he had considered something: he could take advantage of the technical cooperation with Fabon Chemicals to bring along some other projects. Moreover, it would be best to continue exploring the field of sulfonamide drugs, which they had previously cooperated on, and develop even better antibiotics.

If we can develop better antibiotics, we can naturally save more lives in the future, and maybe we can even hold a trump card to end the war.

Lelouch had read many time-travel novels before his transmigration, so he knew that most transmigrators' first thought at this moment was to get penicillin.

However, Lelouch had more common sense than the average transmigrator. He also knew that the birth of penicillin in Earth's history was largely accidental. You can't expect someone else to have a "miracle" like Fleming, suddenly discovering a strain that can precisely kill Staphylococcus aureus while having low toxicity to humans.

Moreover, the subsequent manufacturing and extraction of penicillin present even more challenges that cannot be solved with current technology.

Therefore, when pharmacologists want to specifically search for antibiotic strains and use scientific screening methods to identify useful antibiotics, it seems that streptomycin and oxytetracycline are still the most reliable options.

These are antibiotics produced by strains obtained from large-scale screening of soil actinomycetes.

In Earth's dimension, renowned pharmacologist Waksman organized a massive screening and control experiment, employing a large group of graduate students to help him group the experiments. After several years, he finally identified the first generation of streptomycin. Others used similar techniques to obtain oxytetracycline. These two substances are relatively more suitable for intensive, controlled experiments that rely on sheer brute force.

Moreover, as early as the mid-1910s to the early 1920s, medical scientists and chemists had made some rudimentary scientific observations and discoveries, namely, that areas around certain soils rich in actinomycetes had a bactericidal effect. However, people at that time did not delve into the underlying principles of this phenomenon.

Although streptomycin does not have the broad-spectrum bactericidal effect of penicillin, it is highly effective against tuberculosis, killing tuberculosis bacteria, and is also particularly effective against various lung infections and inflammations.

Therefore, Lelouch couldn't help but think of the Kansas flu that would ravage the world two and a half years later, a disaster that was said to have killed fifty million people in the end.

Now that sulfonamide drugs are available in advance, it is estimated that they can somewhat curb the power of the upcoming flu epidemic. Although the common cold is transmitted by a virus, not bacteria, the real cause of death from the Kansas flu is the weakened immunity it causes and the various complications that follow.

Antibiotics can kill bacteria and the pathogens that cause complications. Even if they cannot completely cure the flu, they can at least reduce the mortality and disability rates, allowing more patients to recover from the flu with mild symptoms and eventually survive. In addition to the huge casualties on both sides, another important reason why World War I on Earth could not continue was that a large number of frontline soldiers on both sides were infected with the disease.

If the Demacian army had a special medicine at that time, while the enemy had not yet built one, would the enemy country have had the courage to continue the war to the end?

From this perspective, although streptomycin is not as effective as penicillin in treating battlefield wound infections, it will definitely be incredibly effective in the future large-scale Kansas flu epidemic.

A cold itself is not fatal. The biggest complications that lead to death from a cold are lung inflammation and the invasion of tuberculosis bacteria.

……

"...So, my idea is roughly like this: when I was inspecting our joint venture sulfonamide research group before, I noticed some related bactericidal research. Some soil actinomycetes seem to be able to kill other bacteria in the surrounding area, and the effect is somewhat similar to the bactericidal effect of sulfonamides."

I hope that Fabben Chemicals can organize its best biochemical experts this time, preferably by drawing on a portion of Bayer Pharmaceuticals' top research team, to work on related projects. This would involve isolating various bactericidal actinomycete strains from the soil, studying their secreted extracts, and experimentally verifying which bacteria each of these bacteria is effective against, their toxicity to humans, and whether it is possible to cultivate varieties that are particularly effective at killing specific bacteria but are low in toxicity or even non-toxic to humans.

If we successfully identify the strains, Fabon Chemicals will need to study how to propagate them, further optimize their characteristics, increase production, extract their secretions, and so on. I think we could consider developing a new approach to sterilization using microbial secretions.

Lelouch roughly explained his needs to Fritz Haber. He himself was not capable of conducting such research; it required a large number of biochemists and research facilities to conduct repeated trial-and-error experiments and to screen the samples layer by layer.

All Lelouch could offer was a general direction and a general idea; he knew nothing about the specific details.

If Lelouch had said these words a year or so ago, Fritz Haber definitely wouldn't have given him a second glance.

Fritz Haber was already a Nobel Prize-winning super chemist, and a chemical industry tycoon. A year ago, Lelouch was just a captain, using Duke Rupprecht's name as a weapon to deceive people.

But now, Lelouch is about to become a general of the empire. Who would dare to underestimate someone who has risen from captain to general in just one year and a few months?
Moreover, there is the successful experience with sulfonamide drugs, and the effort to help the refining department solve the problems of diesel antifreeze and tank lubricant and coolant antifreeze within a week.

All of this forced Fritz Haber to take it seriously. General Lelouch was an extremely farsighted figure. If he didn't believe him, he would regret it later.

"Although this idea is novel and unheard of before, since it is your idea, General, we at Fabon Chemicals are willing to do our best. I will immediately bring Bayer Pharmaceuticals' top microbial secretion research team to deploy the project you desire."

(End of this chapter)