Chapter 18 Military to Civilian Transformation

After work in the afternoon, Xu Qiang returned home and took a bag of humic acid product wrapped in plastic film and went to his laboratory.

Seeing his mother feeding chickens in the backyard, Xu Qiang drew the curtains and began testing the first batch of humic acid samples.

To test the purity of humic acid, Xu Qiang used the volumetric method.

This so-called volumetric method uses a strong oxidant, potassium dichromate, in a strong acid medium to oxidize the carbon in the humic acid molecules into carbon dioxide, and calculates the humic acid content based on the consumption of potassium dichromate and the carbon coefficient of humic acid.

Because this method has fewer testing steps and takes less time, in the past, most small companies producing humic acid used this method, which is economical and practical.

After opening the plastic film that wrapped the humic acid, a small pile of dried humic acid powder was revealed. Xu Qiang scooped out a piece with a small spoon and gently placed it on the scale.

Weigh 15 g of sodium pyrophosphate and 7 g of sodium hydroxide and dissolve them in an appropriate amount of water. Transfer the solution into a 1000 mL volumetric flask, dilute to the mark with deionized water or distilled water, shake well, and set aside.

Weigh 10 g of sodium hydroxide and dissolve it in an appropriate amount of water. Then transfer it to a 1 000 mL volumetric flask, dilute to the mark, shake well, and store in a plastic bottle.

Dry the standard potassium dichromate at 130℃ for 3 h, cool it to room temperature in a desiccator, weigh 9.808 g into a beaker, add water to dissolve, then transfer to a 1000 mL volumetric flask, dilute to the mark with water, shake well...

The entire testing process was very rigorous. Xu Qiang was fully focused, fearing any mistakes.

In fact, in the past, there were spectrometers and gas phase analyzers, and these detection tasks were very simple, but now they are operated manually, and a small mistake or omission may cause huge deviations in the test results.

After spending nearly twenty minutes calculating through formulas, Xu Qiang finally obtained the purity results of this batch of humic acid.

44%!

After calculating this result, Xu Qiang couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Previously, Xu Qiang and the director of the supply and marketing cooperative had talked about the national standards for the effective content of fertilizers. Generally speaking, it is impossible for fertilizers to be 100% pure because there will be certain impurities and impure ingredients in the fertilizer production process.

In addition, some manufacturers will add fillers or additives to fertilizers to control their release rate, protect their stability, improve their absorption effect, etc. These additives have certain effects, but they also affect the purity of the fertilizer.

In addition, even if impurities are reduced as much as possible during the production process, it is difficult to avoid external contamination and influence during packaging, storage, transportation and other links, which may lead to impurity of the fertilizer.

For humic acid fertilizer, an effective content of 44% is already in line with the national standard. However, the purity of Xu Qiang's batch of humic acid reached %, which is nearly percentage points higher than the national standard. This is undoubtedly a great success!
Before, Xu Qiang had always been worried that the humic acid he extracted using traditional methods would not meet the standards, but now it seems that traditional methods can also produce fertilizers that meet the standards.

In addition, the most crucial point is that the peat that Xu Qiang uses to extract humic acid has a very high humic acid content, so even if the process is somewhat imperfect, it can still be extracted to a purity that meets the requirements.

"What do you want to eat tonight?" Zhang Fenglan asked her son casually when she saw him walking out of the room after finishing the test. "Let's fry the remaining eggs at home and make some pancakes. I want to eat egg pancakes tonight!" Xu Qiang waved his hand, his face full of pride.

Tomorrow morning, Xu Qiang will prepare to take a batch of samples to the town supply and marketing cooperative. At that time, Wang Zhong will ask relevant agencies to inspect the samples. Once qualified, his products can be sold in the supply and marketing cooperative.

At this moment, Xu Qiang seemed to smell a little bit of RMB in the air...

……

In the evening, after a short nap, Xu Qiang continued to go to work in the factory.

A short period of sleep cannot restore all physical strength, but Xu Qiang at this moment seems a little excited.

The successful production of the first batch of humic acid relieved a lot of his stress over the past few days. Although he was a little tired, it was better than being exhausted both mentally and physically.

"I want to tell you something today. This is a notice our factory just issued yesterday morning..." At the evening shift meeting, Gao Bo held a document in his hand and read it under the light at the factory door: "Notice on the factory's military-to-civilian technology innovation activities this year: All workers and comrades, in order to respond to the instructions of relevant national policies, the factory has decided that each workshop will take the lead in the development and research of civilian product technologies..."

Gao Bo was reading the factory's notice seriously, while the workers standing opposite him didn't take it seriously. Several workers in the back row were even chatting in low voices.

In fact, the Shengli Machinery Factory's "military-to-civilian" technological innovation activities began several years ago. Although the factory has always emphasized the importance of this activity, there are few responses in the workshops below, and the workers are generally not interested in it.

The reason for this is actually very simple. On the one hand, most workers have a general level of education and are not capable of any technological innovation. In addition, the factory itself has a specialized technical department, so in the eyes of many workers, this activity has nothing to do with them.

In addition, the rewards for "military-to-civilian" technological innovation in previous years are too small, with the highest bonus being only 20 to 30 yuan. Instead of spending time and energy researching technological reforms, it is more cost-effective to work a few more shifts.

What's more, in the chemical workshop, more than half of the front-line workers are rotation workers, and some "troublemakers" who cannot be controlled in other workshops have also been "demoted" here. It is obviously unrealistic to ask these people to carry out technological innovation.

"...I hope everyone can take this event seriously. The factory has invested a lot of money in it." Seeing that his workers seemed to have no interest, Gao Bo continued, "If anyone can win the first prize in this military-to-civilian technical transformation activity, the factory will reward 800 yuan, and will give priority to selecting this year's factory model worker!"

"Wow!"

As soon as Gao Bo finished speaking, the crowd exclaimed in surprise.

Who would have thought that the rewards for this factory event would be so high!

What does 800 yuan mean? It is almost equivalent to the amount of money an ordinary worker can earn in one or two years without eating or drinking. There are many people who have worked for many years but do not have yuan in savings at home!

As for the factory model workers, it is even more attractive for the rotation workers in the chemical workshop, because according to the factory's regulations in previous years, as long as they can be rated as factory model workers, the salary of ordinary formal workers will be increased by one level, and rural cooperative workers will be directly given a quota for agricultural-to-non-agricultural status, and they will be transformed into formal workers with urban household registration!
(End of this chapter)