Chapter 115 Sulphur Dyes
"Boss Xu, can we start work now?" The leader of the three men, the young man named Yang Fulin, asked Xu Qiang.

"We can't start work yet because we haven't got the business license. But I can let you get familiar with the daily work process of our peat farm." Xu Qiang smiled and said to Liu Jun, "Da Jun, you take them around our peat farm first and tell them the basic process of our daily fertilizer refining. Of course, the main thing is to let them know what work they will do in the future."

"Okay!" Liu Jun immediately understood what he meant and took the three people out of the earthen house.

"Erhu, what is the background of these three people in your village? Is the guy named Yang Fulin a relative of your village chief? They have the same surname." Seeing the three people leave, Xu Qiang immediately pulled Erhu aside and asked in a low voice.

"That's right, Yang Fulin is the nephew of our village chief, and his mother and the village chief are siblings." Erhu nodded.

"Where are the other two?"

"Those two have a good relationship with Yang Fulin. The three families are neighbors and have always gotten along well. They can be considered childhood friends."

"Uh." After hearing this, Xu Qiang roughly understood the situation of these three people.

"Our village is generally united. I have a good relationship with these three and we often played together when we were young. When it comes to work, they are all good at it in the village. When they were in the brigade, they did not just get by and worked hard during the busy farming season." Erhu added.

"It seems that your village is stronger than ours." Xu Qiang sighed.

Compared with Shangzhuang Village where Xu Qiang is located, Xiazhuang Village where Erhu and his friends are is indeed more united.

This is also due to the harsh environment, limited land, and distant water sources. If there is no internal unity and everyone just muddles through, they won't even be able to get enough food and clothing. Although the village chief Yang Dong is full of calculations when dealing with outsiders, he is indeed a competent leader.

"By the way, are these three usually pretty honest in the village?"

"It's okay. In the past, we only fought with people from other villages, but in this case, the whole village fought together, just like Big Black Bull. It's just that they were lucky and didn't seriously injure anyone."

"understood."

From Erhu's introduction, Xu Qiang could tell that these three people were not bad people by nature. If they were petty thieves or liked to fight and make trouble, Xu Qiang would definitely not accept them, and he didn't want to cause trouble for himself.

"After the division of our village, the little land we got is not enough for farming. Now everyone is looking for ways to make a living. If we are still short of people, I will tell the village chief and he will provide as many people as needed..." Erhu said.

"Forget it for now. These three people are enough." Xu Qiang shook his head and continued, "If we only use people from your village, it will be a hassle to manage them in the future."

Xu Qiang knew that he could not hire too many people from Xiazhuang Village. After all, people in the same village like to stick together. If they come into conflict with Xu Qiang in the future, that would be a big trouble. So in his opinion, three people are the limit. If there is still a shortage of people, Xu Qiang will only recruit workers from other places.

"Don't worry, uncle. I will always stand by you." Erhu was very smart and understood Xu Qiang's thoughts immediately. He said, "When I was in our production team, no one looked at me straight. If I hadn't followed you, uncle, I wouldn't have enough to eat until now, let alone make so much money! They didn't care about me when I was in trouble, and I won't be on the same side with them now."

"Haha." Hearing this, Xu Qiang laughed.

There is no doubt that Erhu is a very smart person who is good at observing people's words and expressions, and he is also very good at speaking. He is a talent. Because of this, Xu Qiang plans to train him as a salesperson. "Wait for the business license to come, and you should be ready to help me run business all over the country." Xu Qiang pondered for a moment, and then said: "As for the three of them, since they have joined the team, it is still necessary for us to unite internally. In normal times, don't take advantage of you being an old employee to arbitrarily point fingers at them. If there is anything, we should discuss it together. Do you understand?"

"I understand." Erhu nodded.

"Okay, go do your thing." Xu Qiang signaled that he could leave.

After Erhu left, Xu Qiang came to his own laboratory and began to prepare for the research and development of industrial dyes.

Compared with the production of humic acid fertilizers and daily chemical products such as soaps, the production process is much more complicated, especially for some special chromatographic dyes, which require a series of related equipment and strict processes to be extracted.

But for Xu Qiang, due to equipment and cost limitations, he cannot produce those dyes with relatively high costs and complex processes, so researching, developing and producing sulphur dyes has become his best option at the moment.

To put it simply, sulphur dyes are dyes containing sulfur. The production process of this type of dye is simple and the cost is very low. It is generally produced by using organic matter through a certain sulphurization reaction. Sulphur dyes have a history of more than 1873 years since their birth. The first sulphur dye was made by Croissant and Bretonniere in . They obtained it by heating materials containing organic fibers, such as sawdust humus, bran, waste cotton and waste paper, with alkali sulfide and alkali polysulfide.

Peat contains a large amount of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, asphalt, etc. These active substances can be converted into industrial dyes through sulfurization.

As for the production process, it is relatively simple. First, the peat is dried and ground into powder. Then water is added to separate the active substance and mud by precipitation. Then it is dried again and put into a pot. Then, alkali sulfide is added. The mixture is stirred and heated to make it thoroughly blended. The resulting substance is sulphur dye.

Generally speaking, the color spectrum of dyes produced by this method is yellow, orange, brown, etc., and the final color is determined by the content of various active substances in the peat.

"Hei Niu, come and help!" Xu Qiang shouted outside the house.

Xu Qiang was quite relieved about Big Black Bull. Apart from working and cooking, this guy usually spoke very little and basically didn't think about other things.

It is impossible for one person to extract the dyes, especially during the vulcanization and heating process, there must be someone around to help with stirring and loading the materials, which is actually a very physically demanding job.

As for the raw materials, they had been prepared the day before yesterday. The peat powder after sedimentation, separation and drying filled a whole bucket. Liu Jun also bought the alkali sulfide from the supply and marketing cooperative.

With the cooperation of Big Black Bull, Xu Qiang quickly completed the weighing of the raw materials, and the fire on the stove was lit. Xu Qiang first put the separated peat into the pot.

When the temperature was about the same, Xu Qiang added sodium sulfide.

For a moment, the whole house began to be filled with a pungent smell. Xu Qiang knew that this was the smell of hydrogen sulfide emitted after the alkali sulfide reaction.

This stuff is somewhat toxic, but in light amounts it won't have much impact on humans, so just make sure there is good ventilation.

As the two of them worked together, the peat organic matter powder in the pot began to melt with the alkali sulfide and gradually turned into a brown-yellow powder...

(End of this chapter)