In turn, Xindai Town's aluminum semi-finished products are transported to Bella City and Tete City for deep processing through railway and water transportation, and are made into daily utensils and power equipment parts, forming a closed industrial loop.
Of course, if East Africa wants to, it is entirely possible to deploy related industries in Xindai Town, and it has indeed done so. However, the Zambia estuary where Xindai Town is located does not have the same advantages as other river estuaries. Shipping is a big problem., and the refining and preliminary processing of bauxite causes considerable pollution, especially to water sources, so it is not suitable for building large cities locally. Bella City and Tete City, which are closest to Xindai city, undertake a large amount of subsequent processing work.
The potential of Xindai Town is still good, but if it wants to be developed, unless East Africa carries out comprehensive development and governance of the Zambezi River, this is also the main reason for restricting the development of Xindai Town, Zambezi River Although is the second largest river in East Africa, its navigation conditions are too poor. At least from Hindai upwards, it can only be navigable to Tete City. This level has no advantage compared with some rivers in East African coastal plains.
May 1901.
When First Five-Year Plan was in full swing in East Africa, the East African Ministry of Science and Technology came to Nairobi City University for inspection. A new technology was born here, which attracted the attention of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
The scientific research team of the school received the personnel of the Ministry of Science and Technology. The leader of the scientific research project team, Professor Robben, and his students conquered the new alkali production process.
Robben: "My country's soda-making industry started in the 1980s. Although a set of equipment was introduced in the 1970s, the output was low due to a lack of relevant talents. Only in the 1980s did my country recruit a large number of technicians and workers from Europe, and built soda-making plants in Mbeya city and other places."
East Africa began its initial industrial construction phase in the 1970s, which can be said to be relatively bumpy. Although a large number of equipment was introduced to take advantage of the economic crisis at that time, due to the lack of technical personnel, many industrial equipment could not be put into production and maintenance was difficult.
However, the situation in East Africa was a little better than that of the Far East Empire at that time. Although East Africa itself lacked relevant talents and technology, East Africa had the technical guidance of Hohenzollern Conglomerate.
Hohenzollern Conglomerate can be said to have played the role of the Soviet Union in the previous life Far East Empire First Five-Year Plan in the early industrial construction of East Africa.
Hohenzollern Conglomerate has a large number of companies under its umbrella, so it is relatively easy to obtain technical and professional talents. On this basis, East African industry could develop in a bumpy way in the 1970s.
Without this premise, no matter how much industrial equipment East Africa introduced in the past seventy years, it would be equivalent to spending money to buy a pile of scrap metal.
Fortunately, in the 1980s, East Africa introduced a large number of technical personnel from Europe and the United States. With the development of education in East Africa and the return of overseas students, East African industry was stabilized. In the 1990s, East African industry achieved greater development and became relatively mature in the fields of capital, technology, labor and other fields.
The alkali production industry in East Africa also ushered in great development in the 1990s. At present, East Africa's soda ash production is self-sufficient, and some of it is exported.
The special circumstances of East African industry and society have made the demand for soda ash in East Africa relatively strong. This starts with the use of soda ash.
Robben introduced, "Soda ash, commonly known as soda, its chemical composition is sodium carbonate, which is widely found in nature and distributed around the world. It is divided into heavy alkali and light alkali according to density.
According to the purpose, it is divided into industrial grade soda ash and food grade soda ash. Industrial grade soda ash is one of the main raw materials of flat glass. It can also be used as a cosolvent in smelting, a flotation agent in mineral processing and a desulfurization agent in steelmaking. In the textile field, soda ash can be used as a water softener in the textile production process.
Food-grade soda ash can be used as a pasta additive to act as a neutralizer, leavening agent, buffering agent, and dough improver to increase the taste and flexibility of pasta. It can also be used as an auxiliary additive in the production of MSG and soy sauce. "
Among these, in addition to general uses, the importance of soda ash to the glass industry and detergent industry is an important driver of the development of the soda ash industry in East Africa.
In this time and space, for the development of the automobile industry, under the guidance of Ernst, the first industrial mass-produced flat glass was produced in East Africa. East Africa's early emphasis on sanitary conditions also destined East African society to attach great importance to detergent products.
For example, for the cleaning work of early East African immigrants, a large number of required products were imported from Europe, and the cost was much higher. Therefore, East Africa has attached great importance to the alkali production industry since the colonial era.
"At present, my country's alkali production industry mainly uses Leblanc process, which is also the most mature and largest-scale alkali production technology in Europe."
"Of course, countries around the world are now transitioning to Solvay process in the alkali production industry, but our country obtained Solvay process relatively late because of the blockade of Solvay process by major countries. It was not until South African War that our relationship with Germany further improved that we obtained the relevant technology."
Solvay process is the current mainstream trend in the alkali production industry and is also monopolized by powerful countries. It was born in the last century (the late 1860s), so at that time East African industry could only introduce the earlier Leblanc process.
In the beginning, soda ash was mainly extracted from plants. In Europe, alkali was extracted from the juice of seaweed ash.
However, with the start of Industrial Revolution in Britain in the mid-18th century, the amount of alkali required by industries such as textile, printing and dyeing, papermaking, soap making and glass increased dramatically. The alkali extracted from trona and plant ash alone was obviously insufficient, which required artificial production.
Later, under French government's heavy reward, French Lu Bran was the first to make a breakthrough, and Leblanc process followed the trend. In addition to salt, the raw materials used in Leblanc process also include sulfuric acid, charcoal and limestone.
This alkali production process continues to this day, including in use in European countries and East Africa, and it will take more than ten years for Solvay process to completely replace Leblanc process.
For various reasons, the most advanced Solvay process accounts for a small proportion of East African alkali industry. Just when East Africa is preparing to vigorously promote Solvay process, East Africa has also made major technological breakthroughs in the alkali production industry.
The production of East African new alkali production process is different from Leblanc process and the Sowell alkali production method. The fundamental reason for its production is the resource advantage of East Africa.
The specific details of the new alkali production method in East Africa are actually to refine alkali minerals existing in nature, rather than chemically synthesizing other raw materials like the previous two.
This has to mention the distribution of natural alkali minerals in the world. Generally, alkali minerals are mostly contained in surface alkali lakes and exposed mineral deposits, mainly in North America, East Asia, Turkey, and most of Africa.
Egyptian Soda Desert Valley is the world-famous trona mine, and Ancient Egyptians is also one of the first people to use soda ash.
In the East African Rift Valley, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and other areas, and Botswana in southern East Africa, there are a large number of trona ores, so East Africa is very rich in trona ore resources.
The birth of the new alkali production method in East Africa was developed by the chemical research laboratory of Nairobi City University. They used local alkali ores for refining and thus obtained a new alkali production process. In fact, it was the trona method mainly used by United States in later generations.
And Professor Robben said something like Versailles: "The new alkali-making process actually does not have much technical content. It can only be regarded as an unexpected discovery of mine, and the experiment was finally successful. Its main application method is to directly extract soda ash using the abundant alkali ores in East Africa. Moreover, this method is cheaper than the current mainstream alkali-making process in the world. If it can be realized on a large scale, it will undoubtedly make a huge contribution to my country's alkali-making industry."