Chapter 568: Carbon Distillation Tower

"Uh..." Sylvie looked at the cannonball for a long time, and then pointed at Roland's design sketch for a long time before pointing to the detonator and said, "It seems that this copper tube is not aligned with the nail at the top.???≠ "

"Where's the spring?" Anna asked, "Is it still stuck on both sides of the iron plate?"

"One is crooked."

"Left or right?"

Anna inquired about the details, and then recorded the questions one by one in the notebook.

After collecting the reasons for the failure, it was time for the next round of shooting—four shots could just use up Asha's replay ability, so the efficiency of improvement naturally became unprecedentedly high.

It's a pity that the next two rounds of test firing also failed, so Roland had no choice but to announce that he would continue the test tomorrow.

For Asha and Sylvie, their work for today is over, and they can go back to the castle to enjoy a delicious afternoon tea, or go to the convenience market to see if there are any novel products. But for Anna and Agatha, grenade testing is just a small part of their busy work. Especially Anna, in addition to improving the fuze according to the cause of failure, she also had to complete the development and assembly of the steam turbine.

Roland planned to follow her to the backyard on the north slope to see the progress of the steam turbine model, but his personal guard Sean brought news from the city hall.

"Your Majesty, Deputy Minister of Construction Losia hopes that you can go to the kiln area. He said that the first retort furnace has been set up."

...

As an essential facility for the coking plant, the planned ten dry distillation towers are all set up next to the kiln group at the foot of the North Slope mining area.

Due to the extensive felling for brick burning and iron smelting, the kiln group has changed from a small open space of less than 1,000 square meters at the beginning to a vast blank area extending along the mountain. If Roland hadn't strictly prohibited workers from using the woods near the town, it is estimated that there would not be a single tree left in the north of the border area.

Although there is coal now, the easy-to-obtain charcoal is still the main force for iron smelting. As the tree harvesting location is getting farther and farther away from the kilns, the workers set their sights on the northern slope of the mountain—hundreds of them every day The logs were cut and thrown from the top of the mountain, and from a distance, a small "bald spot" appeared on the lush green mountain.

Naturally, Roland would not ask them to protect the environment in such a matter. As long as the dust raised would not affect the town, he would not care if the North Slope Mountain was cut down. After all, compared to the impenetrable mountains, this protruding small mountain range is just an insignificant corner. There are leaves to maintain the basic vegetation, and there is basically no need to worry about water and soil erosion.

And the reclaimed flat land at the foot of the mountain has naturally become the most suitable place for the coking plant.

Roland led Nightingale and his personal guards through the noisy kiln area and came to the first carbonization tower. Losia immediately came forward, bowed to him and said, "Your Majesty, I built this double-layer furnace with refractory bricks according to your request. According to the drawings, the upper furnace should be closed with an iron door, and the middle layer There are iron plates that can move freely, but I don't know who to ask to make these two things. Also, the copper pipes and chimney of the small stove on the side, except for these metal parts, the rest is finished."

Roland got into the furnace and checked it all over—it has to be said that, as a member of the original masonry association and an old friend of Carl Vanbert, Losia really has a lot of experience in masonry. The inner wall of the nearly two-story high retort tower changes evenly, the gaps between each brick are basically the same, and the brick joints are also staggered, not even a single straight joint. . Be aware that even with the same drawing, the finished products built by different people may be quite different.

"Good job," he praised after checking, "I will arrange for the iron gate and iron plate to be cast, and then you only need to cover the firebrick on its fire-facing surface."

"Your Majesty," Losia said hesitantly, "can you tell me how this furnace works?"

"Why, do you also want to be a coking worker?" Roland joked.

"Of course not," the other party shook his head quickly, "I have never built such a strange kiln before, so I can only rely on guesswork for places that are not described in the drawings. If I can know its specific usage and function, I can build Not only can I complete the second seat faster, but I can also improve some uncertainties.”

That's it, Roland said with a smile, "This type of kiln is mainly used for dry distillation of coal. You should have seen how charcoal is fired, right? This one is similar, but on a larger scale. The lower layer is burned, the upper layer is baked, and the filler is fired." It's all coal."

"Bake coal with coal?" Losia asked in surprise.

"Yes, after carbonization, coal can be converted into coke, which burns at a higher temperature and is a good fuel for steelmaking. In addition, several by-products are produced during the carbonization process. The pipes on the tower wall are used to The chimney that collects them, not the exhaust."

"Then...why build a small stove next to the stove?

"During the dry distillation, there must be no air in the upper layer, otherwise the coal will burn directly," Roland pointed to the hole reserved between the two furnaces, "the calcined limestone in the small furnace will produce a lot of carbon dioxide—you can understand it as a kind of gas that cannot be burned. gas……"

"Your Majesty, I know this," Losia continued, "this part is taught in the night class."

"That's easy," Rolandon felt relieved. It seems that the popularization of education is gradually expanding the content with the efforts of Shu Juan, "The carbon dioxide will enter the upper layer of the kiln through the pipes, and all the air will be squeezed out, so that the coal can achieve the dry distillation effect. As for limestone, those grayish-white stones used to make cement, it is everywhere on the northern slope of the mountain."

...

After inspecting the No. 1 dry distillation tower and returning along the original road, he stopped by the kiln area for a while.

Just looking at the busy scene in front of him, Roland couldn't help feeling a little excited. All kinds of brick furnaces stand side by side. At first glance, it looks like a neat red forest. Dozens of smoke columns rise above the forest. Gray, white, and black are intertwined. Outdated appliances together constitute a picture with a strong sense of the times. More than a dozen steam engines are humming, pulling the conveyor belt to send pieces of raw materials and charcoal into the blast furnace; the track system has also been laid here from the mine, and small mine cars are running between the two places In the meantime, the speed of iron ore transshipment has not been what it used to be.

After the construction of the steelmaking plant and forging plant is completed, this place will inevitably become another core place of Neverwinter City - from ore mining to smelting into steel, and then transforming steel into various raw materials and sending them to processing plants, the flower of industry will It was conceived and born here, and since then it has endowed human beings with extraordinary power and the courage to overcome everything. 8