"You want to borrow the lab?"
Professor Lee Yong-eun, who was analyzing samples in the carbon nanomaterials laboratory, heard Lu Zhou's request. He frowned.
Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Yeah, I found something interesting when I was researching literature. I want to experiment with it in the lab. I might need a homogenizer and a digital microscope."
Of course, he made up the reason. Even though he had a good personal relationship with Professor Lee, he did not trust him to that extent. It was not that he doubted Professor Lee's character, he just wanted to avoid some unnecessary conflicts of interest.
After all, the value of an invention of this level could not be measured by a mere SCI thesis.
Especially for people in the industry.
"Okay then, I'll talk to the teacher in charge of the laboratory. You can go directly to Room 304 and find Professor Wang Xianfu."
Even though Professor Lee Yong-eun was curious why Lu Zhou, who was in the field of particle physics, wanted to do this kind of experiment, he did not ask much. He thought it was just a hobby and readily agreed.
If someone else wanted to borrow this equipment, he would hesitate and refuse. However, Lu Zhou was different. Lu Zhou's computational materials science thesis helped him a lot.
That was a billion-dollar project, which directly and indirectly brought tens of millions of economic benefits. Not to mention, as one of the shareholders of Zhongshan New Materials, Lu Zhou was a direct beneficiary.
Compared to that, this little favor was nothing.
It was just a small favor. It was not even a favor.
Lu Zhou was a little embarrassed that Professor Lee agreed so readily.
If he knew this old man was so easy to talk to, he would not have borrowed a digital microscope. He would have borrowed an SEM scanning electron microscope instead …
Seeing how Lu Zhou did not speak, Professor Lee smiled and asked, "Anything else?"
Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "No, thank you, Professor."
"Can you do the experiment by yourself? How about I send Qian Zhongming to help you? "
Lu Zhou politely declined and said, "No need, I want to do it myself."
Of course, he would not agree.
An expert like Senior Brother Qian would probably be able to see the problem at a glance.
By then, there would be a lot of things that he wouldn't be able to explain, whether it was who designed the experiment or how it was done.
This experiment was destined to be done by himself.
"That's fine. Just remember not to break the instrument. Otherwise, don't blame me for complaining to your boss."
Lu Zhou knew that Professor Lee was joking with him, so he smiled and said, "I won't, don't worry! I guarantee that the laboratory will be returned in the same condition as when I borrowed it! "
…
After getting the key from Mr. Wang, Lu Zhou could finally start the next step of his plan.
According to the technology of the scanner gun, the key to solving the problem of lithium dendrite growth was the treatment of polydimethylsilane.
In order to solve this problem, he divided the experiment into two steps: manufacturing and spin-coating.
However, the crux of the problem was the processing of the PDMS material.
Even if the unprocessed PDMS material was coated on the copper sheet, it would be useless. The lithium dendrite would still grow and explode.
Materials science was different from mathematics. The former required countless experiments and a huge investment of funds. The latter did not need to consult literature. A piece of paper and a pen could be used to start research. Most of the research funds were spent on travel expenses for meetings.
Lu Zhou thought for almost an entire day and could not find a suitable method. In the end, he had to spend 500 general points to ask the system for help and obtained the manufacturing formula.
When he saw that his general points had returned to 1,975, his heart ached.
This thing was really f * cking expensive. The general points from his previous missions were only 500 general points, which was only enough to exchange for a PDMS material processing method.
If he used general points to create the entire battery technology, the general points would probably be enough to "buy" Goldbach's conjecture.
Although he spent a lot of general points, fortunately, the materials used in the formula could be found in the laboratory. If he could not find the materials, he could borrow them from the laboratory next door.
After spending a full three days and countless failures, Lu Zhou finally successfully prepared a qualified PDMS material. It was a bottle of waxy yellow gel.
This thing looked like honey, but it had a jelly texture. There did not seem to be anything special on the surface. However, when the sample was placed under an electron microscope, the microscopic structure was completely different from ordinary liquid polydimethylsiloxane.
Lu Zhou did not linger in the joy of victory for long. He put the prepared rectangular copper foil into the glue homogenizer and began the second most critical step of making the electrode material.
Spin coating!
The so-called spin coating method relied on the centrifugal force and gravity generated by the rotation of the workpiece. The paint droplets that fell on the workpiece were fully spread on the surface of the workpiece.
This operation required high operating skills of the experimenter. It was not as simple as sticking a phone film.
The uneven coating was likely to cause the lithium ions to not be evenly separated on the anode material. There was no need to use lithium dendrites to puncture the diaphragm. After a few sets of charging and discharging cycles, the anode would become crooked and unusable.
Although Lu Zhou had tried with other materials before, he still failed many times.
After struggling for an entire morning, he finally succeeded in obtaining a piece of precious "copper foil evenly coated with PDMS nanoporous film".
Lu Zhou looked at the copper foil on the tweezers and could not help but feel emotional.
If he knew what this thing was and what it was for, no one would think it was expensive even if he offered a price of hundreds of millions of US dollars.
Lu Zhou was proud of himself for a while. He then packed up the samples and took away the remaining PDMS materials in the medicine bottles.
Now there was only one step left.
Which was to make a simple battery and test the performance of this film to see if it was as magical as he imagined.
Lu Zhou had already seen Brother Qian's demonstration. Although he was not very familiar with the process, he was basically familiar with it.
Lu Zhou went to another laboratory and put on a white coat. He reached into the glove box filled with argon and carefully fixed the copper foil covered with PDMS nanoporous film onto the battery mold.
The binder was sodium carboxymethylcellulose and styrene-butadiene rubber, the collector was aluminum foil, and the positive electrode material was LiFePO4, which was commonly used in lithium-ion batteries!
As for the diaphragm, Lu Zhou chose the Celgard 2325 three-layer composite diaphragm as usual.
Other than the major change in the anode material, the other materials were basically the same as the lithium dendrite experiment. At most, there was a slight change in the amount of materials used.
After completing the final assembly operation, Lu Zhou still did not dare to be careless. He carefully took out the sample and closed the valves in the glove box.
After completing all the steps, he let out a sigh of relief and gently wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.
"Done!"
As Lu Zhou looked at the battery sample in his hand, his heart was filled with excitement.
There was also a hint of devotion that he did not expect.
Yes, it was devotion.
As a scientific researcher, it was devotion to science.
This technology was most likely from a civilization that was more advanced than all of the civilizations on Earth combined. Compared to the significance of its existence, the economic value hidden behind it was much dimmer.
Perhaps it came from the ruins of a battlefield, or perhaps it came from an inconspicuous trash can next to an interstellar amusement park.
But no matter where it came from, the person who made it see the light of day was Lu Zhou himself.
Lu Zhou took a deep breath and restrained the excitement in his heart. He then connected the battery sample to the BK-6808 rechargeable battery tester and carefully placed it under a digital microscope.
Everything was ready, and all he had to do was wait.
He hoped that the final result would not disappoint him.
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