Seeing the Crown Prince's eyes light up with excitent, Lavoisier hurriedly explained, "Your Highness, if you only need one or two thousand kilograms of casein glue per month, an investnt of 5,000 livres would suffice. But if we're talking about 50,000 kilograms, the raw materials like soda ash and water glass will be in severe shortage. Currently, the entire production of soda ash around Paris can only support about 1,000 kilograms of casein glue per month.
"So, you would first need to invest in a soda ash factory, and it would have to be on a massive scale. You see, producing soda ash requires building a reverberatory furnace and a sulfuric acid factory, which would cost at least 800,000 livres. And that's not including the costs for producing water glass and purifying slaked li..."
"Wait a minute," Joseph interrupted, raising his hand. "Did you just say that producing soda ash requires a reverberatory furnace? Like the ones used for steelmaking?"
"That's correct, Your Highness," Lavoisier nodded. "You might not be familiar with the latest bulk production thod for soda ash. It was just invented by Dr. Leblanc. The process involves mixing salt and sulfuric acid, distilling it, then adding listone and coal before putting it into a reverberatory furnace to be heated until it lts. This requires temperatures high enough to lt iron, so the reverberatory furnace is very suitable..."
As Lavoisier explained, Joseph realized that in this era, they were still using the calcination and crystallization thod to mass-produce soda ash. Just reaching the high temperatures of over 1,000 degrees Celsius consud enormous amounts of coal. Additionally, the sulfuric acid used in the process severely corroded the reverberatory furnace, necessitating its replacent every few years. No wonder Lavoisier ntioned needing a million-livre investnt; setting up a soda ash production facility akin to a steel mill would indeed be extraordinarily expensive.
Joseph then rembered that soda ash was essentially sodium carbonate, also known as soda. It was one of the five pillars of the chemical industry, and many chemists had been driven to desperation in the quest to reduce its production costs.
But thankfully, thanks to his chemistry major roommates from his previous life, he hadn't completely forgotten his chemistry knowledge. For example, Joseph knew the "Hou's process" for producing soda ash—a thod that could easily outpace the 18th-century thods in use.
Taking a deep breath, Joseph thought about how all profitable comrcial products ultimately rely on the most basic raw material production. Fortunately, he still rembered so key chemistry knowledge from his previous life.
He smiled and said to Lavoisier, "Actually, I know a completely new thod for producing soda ash, and the cost should be less than a tenth of the thod you just described."
Lavoisier's eyes widened. If anyone else had made such a claim, he would have laughed them off imdiately. But coming from the "Son of Heaven's Favor," he had to take it seriously.
"Are you serious?"
"Yes," Joseph replied, "The basic ingredients are salt, ammonia, and carbon dioxide." He didn't hold back, knowing that soone like Lavoisier wouldn't steal his idea and would need to help develop the production process. "First, you pass ammonia gas into a saturated salt solution to form ammonium chloride. Then you introduce carbon dioxide, which will produce…"
After Joseph explained the Hou's process, he waited for Lavoisier's exclamation. But after half a minute, Lavoisier instead frowned and shook his head.
"Your Highness, your thod is excellent, but it might not be feasible."
Joseph was taken aback. What? Did he hear correctly? This was the Hou's process!
Lavoisier continued, "Your thod requires a large amount of ammonia gas. If I recall correctly, the price of sal ammoniac is around 7 livres per kilogram. This would an the production cost of your soda ash wouldn't be much cheaper than Dr. Leblanc's thod. Moreover, the entire supply of sal ammoniac in Europe wouldn't be enough to sustain a monthly production of 50,000 kilograms of casein glue."
Joseph blinked in confusion. "Sal ammoniac? What is that?"
"It's the mineral used to produce ammonia gas..."
As Lavoisier continued to explain, Joseph's expression darkened. Sal ammoniac was ammonium chloride, and without advanced chemical technology, ammonia gas could only be obtained by calcining this expensive mineral.
This shot the costs through the roof.
He realized that the synthetic ammonia process only matured by the late 19th century, and Dr. Hou invented his soda ash process in the 20th century, by which ti ammonia was dirt cheap. Producing synthetic ammonia required ultra-high-temperature and high-pressure reaction technology—impossible in the 18th century.
So, his dreams of kickstarting a chemical industry and a furniture revolution were just wishful thinking?
Seeing his disappointed expression, Lavoisier quickly added, "Your Highness, your ideas are incredibly innovative. It's just that sotis, the old thods might still be the most practical…"
Joseph chuckled bitterly. He hadn't expected that the world-changing Hou's process could be outdone by the reverberatory furnace.
Then he rembered watching a docuntary about Dr. Hou, detailing how he painstakingly refined the Solvay process step by step under very challenging conditions until he finally succeeded.
Wait, what was Dr. Hou's major improvent again? It had sothing to do with combined soda ash production—producing both soda ash and fertilizer to boost output and raw material efficiency.
And what about the Solvay process? How was it done again?
Joseph furrowed his brow, trying to recall the details from the docuntary, muttering to himself, "Salt, ammonia, and carbon dioxide dissolve in water. Remove the precipitates, add listone, and heat to react..."
Joseph suddenly paused. Wait, during the reaction, both ammonia and carbon dioxide are released and can be reused in the next reaction!
This would an that the ammonia consumption would be very minimal. Although it wouldn't produce fertilizer like the Hou's process, it would bypass the ammonia issue.
Finally, he breathed a sigh of relief, realizing he had been fixated on using the most advanced technology when it might not be suitable for this era.
"Mr. Lavoisier," he said with a smile, "If I have another thod that doesn't consu ammonia gas, could you help design the production process?"
Lavoisier's eyes widened in astonishnt. Could the Crown Prince truly be divinely inspired?! Producing soda ash was cutting-edge technology, and yet he had co up with two different thods within half an hour!
(End of Chapter)
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