94: From Technological Warfare to Space Empire

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Lin Yu led everyone toward the workshop.

Along the way, Sergei's gaze swept across the factory area.

Neatly stacked steel slag.

Newly paved cement road surface.

Newly pressed bricks and tiles made of calcium silicate.

A true expert's skill is immediately apparent.

With just a quick glance, Sergei recognized that this was a technique for extracting calcium silicate, and casually asked:

"Comrade, your factory seems to be processing industrial waste?"

Shallow recycling of steel slag has become a mature technology in both the United States and Russia.

Sergei was naturally familiar with cement and red tiles.

"Yes, we have developed a comprehensive utilization process for steel slag."

Lin Yu answered casually.

"It can reduce pollution and create economic benefits at the same time."

On the day Sergei and his party arrived in Beijing, they contacted their old friends who were still in China and had already heard about the outrageous process of magnetic separation for titanium and vanadium extraction at the Red Star No. 2 Factory.

Opinions on this matter vary widely, with some calling him a clown and others praising him as a genius.

At this point, Yevgeny couldn't help but interject with a question:

"I heard you can separate titanium and vanadium using magnetic separation? That's quite unusual."

Yevgeny's Chinese was not good, unlike Sergei, who could communicate with Lin Yuquan in Chinese; it was a translator who conveyed his meaning.

After listening, Lin Yu smiled.

You'll see that during the tour.

The first stop is extraction workshop No. 3.

Amid the roar of machinery, workers are feeding crushed steel slag into the production line.

Silvery-white titanium dioxide and orange-yellow vanadium pentoxide fell from different outlets, piling up into small hills.

These two products are easy to recognize.

In addition, their thoughts had already been imprinted in their minds.

In an instant, everyone on Hill's team was stunned.

They have seen the most advanced metallurgical equipment in the world.

That was the fully automated purification line of the Dnipropetrovsk Steel Plant during the height of the Soviet Union's power.

But those all require high temperature and pressure, complex chemical reagents, and huge energy consumption.

But the equipment in front of them... although it looks relatively novel, in the eyes of experts it looks like an ordinary combination of crusher, ball mill and magnetic separator.

Simple, even rudimentary.

"May I take a look at the control unit?"

"Gregory asked. He was a nuclear radiation protection expert, but also very familiar with electronic equipment."

Lin Yu gestured to Sun Qingnan to open the control box of a magnetic separator.

Inside was a circuit board so complex that no one could understand it, with indicator lights flashing rhythmically.

"We improved the oscillation circuit."

Lin Yu began to repeat his rhetoric.

"Utilizing the frequency characteristics of the magnetic susceptibility of different metal oxides in an alternating magnetic field..."

He spoke very professionally, from electron spin in quantum mechanics all the way to band theory in solid-state physics.

After these days of intensive study, I can even pronounce some professional terms in Russian.

Sergei's team was stunned.

It's not that they don't understand; it's precisely because they understand it so well that they are shocked.

In an instant, they knew it couldn't be academic fraud.

Every theoretical point Lin Yu made was at the forefront of Soviet physics research, or even ahead of it.

Without thorough research, it would be impossible to reach the same conclusions as those within their own academy.

Andrei believed the outside world's opinions the most and instinctively wanted to refute them.

But look at the high-purity titanium dioxide flowing out of the outlet continuously.

I just can't bring myself to say it.

The facts are undeniable and irrefutable.

"Comrades".

Sergei spoke slowly.

"You just mentioned the electron cloud oscillation model. I noticed that you used terms like coherence enhancement and phase matching several times in your description."

"This is very similar to the concept of laser physics."

Lin Yu's heart skipped a beat; the old expert was indeed astute.

This was a hook related to nuclear radiation that he deliberately planted to steer the conversation toward actinide batteries.

Laser is essentially a form of non-ionizing radiation.

The light emitted by stimulated emission of atoms is called a laser.

"There are indeed similarities."

Lin Yu admitted

"The interaction between magnetic field oscillations and electron clouds can produce an effect similar to stimulated emission under certain conditions, but this is still in the theoretical exploration stage."

He deliberately spoke vaguely.

But they secretly inserted a few keywords.

"Nuclear excited state"

"Energy level transition"

"Energy conversion efficiency".

Gregory's ears perked up; as a radiation protection expert, he was all too sensitive to these words.

Ask tentatively

"Are you saying that the decay energy of radioactive isotopes can also be extracted using a similar principle?"

The workshop suddenly fell silent for a few seconds.

A vague, ambiguous smile appeared on Lin Yu's face.

The decay of radioactive isotopes.

This refers to the decay process of uranium isotopes in nuclear power plants.

The particle radiation emitted during decay is usually highly toxic.

Actinide radiation photovoltaic metal cells are a technology that uses terbium metal to convert this radiation into light energy.

Lin Yu didn't answer, but instead smiled:

"Comrade Gregory, today we are discussing the elasticity of steel. Let's leave these advanced theories to specialized academic conferences."

He turned and gestured

"Okay, let's go take a look at the steel rolling workshop. We'd really like to learn the VT20 titanium alloy welding process you brought."

The topic was abruptly changed, but the seed had already been planted.

In the morning, we had a frank discussion about the elasticity of steel.

The afternoon's theoretical exchange meeting was held secretly in the factory's conference room.

The long table was covered with a dark green velvet cloth to welcome guests.

The walls are covered with portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin.

This was specially chosen by Liu Jianguo to create a friendly academic atmosphere.

The conference room was filled with a faint aroma of tea and tobacco.

Seeing that no one was around, he didn't bother with any pretense about the elasticity of steel.

The professors who had been hiding in the steel plant beforehand also emerged and took their seats one by one.

After the meeting, the Seger team first introduced the vacuum welding process of the titanium alloy of VT20.

The chalk scratched on the blackboard, drawing a microscopic structural diagram.

The professor personally explained everything from thermodynamic parameters to the evolution of microstructure, making it both profound and easy to understand.

"For example, by using a process window of 1600~1640 degrees Celsius under the vacuum intensity we recommend, we can produce high-strength welds."

Lin Yu sat at the long table, his left hand supporting his chin, and his right index finger gently tapping the surface.

These days, he has been using China Unicom's 2026 AI system to look up a lot of information.

It seems that the Russian wasn't telling the truth.

Comrade Sergei

Lin Yu suddenly spoke in Russian.

"The critical temperature for the transformation from the α phase to the β phase that you just mentioned is 882 degrees Celsius..."

"This isn't right, is it?"

There was a moment of silence in the conference room.

The professors from both the Chinese and Russian sides put down their pens and looked at Lin Yu with some surprise.

Sergei's hand froze in mid-air, chalk dust falling in a flurry.

He turned to look at Lin Yu, a look of surprise flashing in his gray-blue eyes.

"What does Comrade Lin Yu mean?"

Lin Yu put the cap back into the nib of his fountain pen, twirled the pen with one hand, and casually asked:

"In the vacuum environment of 10 to the power of -3 Pascals that you recommended."

"The temperature should drop by 7-9 degrees Celsius, right?"

? ! ! !

These words were like a meteorite falling into a lake, instantly stirring up a storm in the hearts of the Soviet professors.

This is their latest, closely guarded research; how did the Chinese find out?!