Catalyst

Lu Xuedong let out a sigh of relief: "That's good then."

He added casually: "As for the purpose, you'll know in a moment."

"I'm looking forward to it more and more." Lu Xuedong was indeed very excited; over the past few days, he had witnessed two brand-new materials, as if a door had been opened for him.

More than three hours later, He Wen walked out of the testing area holding a rough analysis report, his face showing a hint of excitement:

"General Manager Huang, this all-nitrogen molecule is too incredible. Take a look at these reaction data."

He took it and passed it to Lu Xuedong, as he already knew the contents clearly: "Xuedong, you take a look first."

Lu Xuedong did not stand on ceremony and began to browse through it carefully. When he flipped to the section He Wen had circled in red ink, his expression also turned to disbelief.

"It can rapidly promote the decomposition of organic matter? One gram can decompose 5 to 10 kilograms of organic matter, and the decomposition products are hydrogen, oxygen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane, ethane, propane, and other organic alkanes."

He Wen, standing to the side, interjected: "General Manager Lu, the decomposition itself isn't what's surprising. The key is that the conditions for decomposition are extremely easy; you only need to add the solution of this material and then expose it to ultraviolet light to trigger a rapid decomposition reaction."

He Wen, whose emotions were running high, continued without pause: "What's more important is that by adjusting the wavelength of the ultraviolet light, the decomposition reaction can be directed to produce the desired products."

"In other words, it can be directed to decompose organic matter into things like carbon monoxide and methane?"

"Yes, and it's not just natural organic matter that can be decomposed; plastics and the like can be as well." He Wen's tone trembled slightly.

This indiscriminate catalytic decomposition greatly enhanced the value of the material.

One must realize that the vast majority of petroleum extracted from underground is composed of organic matter, and in the ecosystem, all living organisms contain organic matter within their bodies.

And their company, which was currently engaged in the waste recycling industry, found that the municipal solid waste was rich in a large amount of organic matter.

Whether it was leftovers or plastic bags, these things were essentially organic matter, and they were "mineral deposits" that were being generated continuously—this was much easier than digging for underground resources.

Seeing this, Lu Xuedong suddenly realized: "It seems you had it all calculated, Xiuyuan. Recycling domestic waste to manufacture and sell gas—if the results match the test, manufacturing gas efficiently and at a low cost would indeed be quite profitable."

Huang Xiuyuan took the opportunity to encourage them: "Now we need everyone to cooperate sincerely and work quickly with the engineering team to develop an efficient and safe gas production line."

"No problem." Lu Xuedong nodded hurriedly.

"It is our honor." He Wen also began to roll up his sleeves, eager to get started.

First, they worked with the engineering team to modify three Nitrogen-16 Generators. The single-pore models (where only one hexagonal silicon oxide was embedded on the graphene film) could synthesize 1.2 kilograms of Nitrogen-16 per hour.

The three newly modified Nitrogen-16 Generators were dual-pore and triple-pore models, capable of producing 2.4 to 3.6 kilograms of Nitrogen-16 per hour per unit.

They could produce about 10 kilograms of Nitrogen-16 per hour.

To keep things simple, they planned to produce only liquefied petroleum gas, which is a mixture of propane and butane.

Because the residents in the Shanmei area primarily used liquefied petroleum gas, producing other types of gas would require modifying gas stoves, which would become an obstacle to promotion for penny-pinching users.

After a series of tests, it was determined that for producing propane and butane gas, the optimal Nitrogen-16 solution concentration was 5.8% to 6.7%. When exposed to ultraviolet light of a specific wavelength, one gram of Nitrogen-16 could catalyze the decomposition of 7.5 to 8.2 kilograms of organic matter.

Food waste typically accounts for about 45% to 55% of the total municipal solid waste, and the dry weight of organic matter in food waste is generally 16% to 21%.

Decomposing one ton of food waste requires 20 to 25 grams of Nitrogen-16. Based on a daily urban waste output of 1,000 tons, it would require 20 to 25 kilograms of Nitrogen-16 per day.

However, considering the current situation at the recycling plant, clearing 500 tons a day would be a good result, so the current production volume of Nitrogen-16 could meet the production needs.

On the other hand, there was the research regarding the unit gas yield.

During the trial operation of the recycling plant, after preliminary separation of the municipal waste, those organic waste materials could produce 16 to 25 kilograms of liquefied gas per ton of organic waste, with a gas yield rate of 0.016 to 0.025 tons per ton of food waste.

Based on the recycling and separation situation over these days, and factoring in the organic matter proportion of food waste:

Clearing 500 tons of municipal waste per day would generate 225 to 275 tons of food waste, which could produce 3.6 to 6.875 tons of liquefied gas.

If plastic products (about 10% proportion) and paper products (about 8% proportion) from the waste were also used as raw materials for gas production:

50 tons of plastic products could produce 25 to 30 tons of liquefied gas; 40 tons of paper products could also produce 10 to 13 tons of liquefied gas.

Moreover, after the gas was extracted, the reaction residues from the food waste, waste paper, and waste plastic could be used as fertilizer, though they would require further desalination and dehydration.

Currently, Huang Xiuyuan, Lu Xuedong, He Wen, Du Jinhua, and others were continuously perfecting the production process.

Although the gas production from food waste was relatively small, there were actually other types of organic waste in municipal solid waste, such as fallen leaves and branches from landscaping, and feces and sewage sludge from sewers.

The calorific value of fallen leaves and branches was not low, at about 16,000 kJ/kg.

The calorific value of feces (mainly human feces), after drying, was about 18,800 kJ/kg, and feces typically had a moisture content of 70%.

Each person excretes about 0.2 kilograms of feces per day, with a dry weight of about 0.06 kilograms.

The urban population of Shanmei was 800,000, excreting 160 tons of feces daily, which could be dried into 48 tons of dry matter, producing about 16 tons of liquefied gas.

If human feces were not enough, there was also livestock manure from farms, and the calorific value produced by livestock manure was not much different from that of human feces.

Pigs and cows, in particular, could be called manure-making machines; a pig excretes an average of 1.5 kilograms of feces per day, while a cow was even more exaggerated, averaging about 20 kilograms of cow manure per day.

These things were "organic mineral deposits" and invisible resources that had not been utilized during the course of human development.

Referring to the domestic animal husbandry data, does anyone know the annual production volume of livestock manure in Huaguo?

People usually only notice the prices at the vegetable market, calculating how much a jin of pork costs today or how much a jin of beef costs tomorrow.

Yet, few people know that the annual production of livestock manure from Huaguo's animal husbandry industry has reached a staggering 3 billion tons, with an annual growth of nearly 100 million tons, and it is expected to exceed 4 billion tons per year by 2018.

If it could all be recycled and utilized, calculated at a dry matter content of 30%, it could be dried into 900 million tons of dry matter, refining about 300 million tons of liquefied gas.

Developing oil fields is not as stable as this.

After all, a large portion of domestic oil fields must be kept as reserves, and the difficulty and cost of extraction are quite high.

As for foreign oil fields, there are too many uncontrollable factors—local situations, transportation distances, natural and man-made disasters, etc. Without background and large capital, there is simply no point in playing that game.

Even if Suiren Company could only develop 10% of the domestic biomass resources, the gas produced each year could easily reach 50 million tons.

Thank you all for your support, and thanks to book friends "Zhangjian Jianghu Wei Hongchen", "Shui Zai Paopao Li De Yu", and "Yuming Daoren" for the tips! (˙ω˙)