The Frick Chemistry Laboratory's hardware was indeed one of the best in the United States. Not only was Princeton willing to spend money on professors, but they also invested a lot of money on equipment.
Connie brought the latest MACCOR high-precision battery testing system over. He looked at Lu Zhou and smiled.
"This is the best battery testing system in the entire Frick Chemistry Laboratory. I borrowed it for you!"
Lu Zhou: "Actually, there's no need for such a good battery testing system …"
Connie explained, "But you said that it's better to invest in the equipment than to spend the budget on repeated experiments on samples."
Lu Zhou stared at Connie and suddenly felt that this kid was not as honest as he looked.
The money used to buy the machine was all on Lu Zhou's account.
If this was before, Lu Zhou would definitely feel bad for a while.
But now …
Fine, it was shameful to waste money. He still felt bad.
But it didn't hurt that much.
Lu Zhou put aside the equipment and asked in a serious tone, "Do you know how to make battery samples?"
Connie immediately said, "No problem, this is easy!"
Lu Zhou thought for a bit and said, "You're responsible for samples 11 and 14. I'll be responsible for samples 15 and 23. Mix the hollow carbon sphere powder with sulfur according to the mass fraction of 30%, 20%, and 10%. Make the cathode material, then assemble the lithium battery. You know how to do it, right? "
Connie stood up straight and said, "Of course!"
There was nothing much to say about the cathode material. Because the synthesis process was simple, the combination of modified PDMS film and copper core lithium plate was not only standard in the industry, but it was also standard in major materials science research institutes.
As for the cathode material, it took a bit more effort.
Not only hollow carbon spheres, but all carbon nanomaterials had similar problems.
Simple mechanical stirring and grinding could only mix the hollow carbon spheres macroscopically with the matrix powder, but it could not disperse the hollow carbon spheres themselves.
Before the hollow carbon spheres were mixed with sulfur by ball milling, a surfactant such as polyurethane had to be added to disperse the hollow carbon spheres in ethanol. Then, the hollow carbon spheres were mixed with the sulfur.
As for the rest of the steps, it was no different from Lu Zhou's lithium battery experiment.
The battery was assembled in the glove box, and then connected to the battery testing system. Through a large number of charging and discharging tests, the performance of these materials in the electrode was confirmed.
There was no skill involved in these jobs.
In fact, the research of materials science itself didn't have any skills.
The current research and development of new materials was mainly based on the researchers' "scientific intuition" and a large number of repeated "trial and error" experiments, using limited conditions to find a feasible method. If he could establish a set of theories that could be applied within a limited range, then he would be considered a very powerful big shot.
Although mathematical methods could reduce the workload of experiments, experiments were still necessary …
…
He remembered that the last time he worked so hard was around this time last year.
In order to complete the last step of solving Goldbach's conjecture, Lu Zhou locked himself in a world that was less than 20 square meters. He was completely immersed in the maze of numbers, looking for the final way out.
Compared to the feeling at that time, the feeling now was simply insignificant.
This long-lost feeling was really nostalgic.
It had been almost a week since the beginning of the first experiment.
During this time, other than not sleeping in the laboratory, Lu Zhou basically spent the rest of his time in the laboratory.
Also, two days ago, Yang Xu, who was commanding the experiment at the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials, made a table of the effect of the specific surface area and pore size of the hollow carbon spheres on the sulfur load and the mass fraction of polysulfide compounds in the electrolyte.
In order to not delay his work, he needed to build a mathematical model based on this data as soon as possible and then formulate the next experiment plan.
Everything seemed to be piling up.
Lu Zhou rubbed his eyebrows and threw away the ballpoint pen in his hand. He looked at Connie, who was looking at the sample.
"How's sample number 15?"
Connie, who also had dark circles under his eyes, shook his head and said, "The last group is completely scrapped. Almost all of the sulfur was deposited on the surface of the carbon material. You can come over and take a look, it's spectacular … "
Lu Zhou sighed and said, "Take the sample to the scanning electron microscope, then dispose of it … I've seen enough."
It's too tragic.
If this was the case, then the three groups of samples number 11, 14, and 15 were almost completely wiped out.
Lu Zhou couldn't help but wonder if there was a problem with his theory after seeing such a tragic experimental result.
Can hollow carbon nanospheres with a specific surface area in the range of [2326m2g- 1,3762 m2g-1] and a diameter in the range of [60nm-70nm] really inhibit the diffusion of polysulfide compounds?
However, this was the last thing he wanted to doubt.
Because after that, he did the calculations many times and came up with the same results.
If there was a problem with his theory, then he had to make a difficult choice.
Should he pretend not to know and continue to cheat the industry? Or should he be a scholar with integrity, take the initiative to correct his mistakes, and honestly contact the editorial department of Shuimu University to withdraw his thesis …
The former was quite feasible. Even if he was proven wrong in the future, he could use the excuse of "honest mistake" to cover it up, and no one would make things difficult for him. But then he thought about the wasted resources …
Wait a minute!
Lu Zhou suddenly came back to his senses.
I haven't even finished the experiment yet, and I'm already thinking about the consequences.
What's going on?
Lu Zhou clenched his fists and took a deep breath. He calmed down and looked at Connie.
"What's the situation with sample number 23?"
"Let me see … The 10% and 30% groups are finished after 200 revolutions. The 20% group … I can't believe it, it's already 500 revolutions, but it's still struggling."
The word struggling was interesting.
It seemed like his assistant didn't have any hope for this experiment.
However, in Lu Zhou's opinion, it was completely different.
He controlled his excitement and asked, "What about the change in the volume of the negative electrode material?"
Connie looked through the transparent part of the battery case for a long time before he gave an ambiguous answer, "There doesn't seem to be any changes."
Lu Zhou resisted the urge to swear and said, "Don't look at it, use a vernier caliper to measure it! I want an accurate answer! "
"I know, I'm just kidding …" After disassembling the battery, Connie carefully processed the positive electrode material inside and measured its width with a vernier caliper.
The volume expansion effect of carbon-sulfur composite materials was very obvious; it could be clearly observed at a macroscopic scale.
After testing it once, Connie recorded the data on the experiment report. Suddenly, he froze.
Then, he did another set of tests.
Another set of tests …
Lu Zhou looked at Connie and frowned.
"Failed?"
"No …" Connie shook his head and gulped as he said, "The results are unbelievable …"
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