During this time, Lu Zhou had been paying attention to the movements of his peers.
On the arXiv website, there was an increase in the number of theses on hollow carbon spheres and sulfur composites.
Even though in fields like biology and chemistry, an innovative idea wasn't that important. Therefore, scholars weren't as enthusiastic about submitting theses to arXiv as they were in pure mathematics, theoretical physics, and computer science. However, this trend still reflected the trend of the academic community.
At the same time, through professional academic search engines, it could be seen that hollow carbon spheres were constantly emerging.
However, in comparison, these results weren't as groundbreaking as the HCS-1.
Of course, it could not be ruled out that the major research institutions had already made some progress, but for the sake of greater ambition, they did not publish the in-progress results and were secretly preparing their big moves.
After all, companies like Umicore and Nichia Chemicals were happy to cooperate with Lu Zhou, as long as the cost of patent licensing was lower than the cost of breaking the law. However, they were obviously more interested in holding the patent rights in their own hands.
Lu Zhou had seen some clues from his last meeting with Grynberg. Needless to say, the Belgian laboratory must be at full speed, ready to seize this high ground.
If this was the case, then Lu Zhou had to speed up.
…
In the middle of March, after receiving a reply from Science, Lu Zhou made an appointment with Yang Xu, who was far away in Jinling. They had a short video conference to discuss the next step of the research plan.
Before the conference began, Lu Zhou sent the relevant HCS-1 information to Yang Xu's work email. This included data that had already been published in journals, as well as data that hadn't been published yet.
Because of this, when the video call began, Yang Xu immediately asked, "What's in the email?"
Lu Zhou said concisely, "The new experimental plan. The relevant information is in the email, and the samples will be sent soon. Simply put, I need you to help me find a stable way to synthesize the HCS-1 material. "
The method of producing the HCS-1 material in Sarrot's laboratory was relatively random. Strictly speaking, HCS-1 was only a by-product of the reaction, which was obtained through centrifugation and further purification.
Even without considering the limited industrial application prospects of the HCS-1 material, it would be difficult to achieve industrial production with this inefficient production method.
Unless someone was willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a lithium battery, and then spend a lot of money to dispose of piles of waste. From an economic point of view, this was obviously impossible.
There were two ways to promote the HCS-1 material. One was to improve the preparation method and reduce the production cost. The other way was to improve the material itself.
With HCS-1 as a reference, it wouldn't be difficult to find HCS-2 or even HCS-3 that was more suitable for mixing with sulfur.
Due to these reasons, Lu Zhou set two research directions for the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials. One was the process improvement of the HCS-1 material, and the other was the improvement of the HCS-1 material itself.
His requirements for the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials were different from Sarrot's laboratory. Sarrot's requirements were to complete the system mission to study the topologically folded caged molecules.
Sarrot's requirements were more realistic, which was to solve the shuttle effect.
This was a requirement for the new energy industry and the country's new energy strategy. Whether it was out of personal interest or his commitment to the China Energy Bureau, Lu Zhou would work hard in this area.
Yang Xu said, "You've given me a difficult problem."
Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I believe you can do it."
Yang Xu: "Other than the vague direction, do you have a more specific idea?"
Lu Zhou thought for a bit and said, "I do have some ideas. Write it down, I won't send another email."
Yang Xu nodded and took out a pen and paper.
Lu Zhou took a sip of water and said, "Glucose."
The two went silent for half a minute.
Yang Xu said, "… Glucose?"
Lu Zhou nodded and said, "That's right. Specifically, change the precursor from the copolymer of polyaniline and polypyrrole to glucose."
This was the result of his discussion with Sarrot. As for how they came to this conclusion, it obviously went through a lot of calculations and experiments, as well as some essential "scientific intuition".
This sounded a bit unreliable, but compared to the "trial and error" method, at least there was some theoretical basis.
However, these theories still needed to be proven.
However, Yang Xu's eyebrows twitched violently when he heard this.
"That's it?"
Lu Zhou spread his hands and said, "That's it, that's it."
No wonder there's no need to send an email, this isn't necessary.
Yang Xu complained in his heart and put away the pen and paper on the table.
Lu Zhou paused for a second and said, "We're not the only ones doing similar research. As far as I know, there's Umicore in Belgium and Nichia Chemical. We're competing with international chemical giants. I know this is a difficult task, but I hope you can overcome it. "
Yang Xu couldn't help but say, "If this really has potential, then you shouldn't have said it at the conference."
Lu Zhou made a helpless expression and said, "The situation at the time was a bit special, and I didn't expect them to publicize the content of the conference."
There was one more thing that Lu Zhou didn't say.
What he didn't expect the most was that not only did it become public, but so many people actually believed it to be true …
…
Hollow carbon spheres had a lot of potential, and there was no shortage of competitors in this field.
In academia, a novel idea wasn't worth a lot of money.
In addition to international chemical giants such as Umicore and Nichia Chemicals, there were many other research institutes doing similar research. Some of them were collaborating with companies, while others received money from the state.
For example, Professor Wang Haifeng was one of them.
While Lu Zhou and Yang Xu were discussing technical issues, Lu Zhou was also busy working on a project at Zhi University.
However, he wasn't busy with the experiment; he was busy preparing for the experiment.
Around two weeks ago, the laboratory project was finally decided. Using hollow carbon spheres/sulfur composite materials as the positive electrode, solving the diffusion problem of polysulfide compounds from the positive electrode to the organic electrolyte. Even though he didn't like Lu Zhou, he had to admit that hollow carbon spheres had a lot of potential.
The funding proposal had already been submitted. If everything went well, they would be able to see the results in a few days.
As the boss of a scientific research institute, what he needed to do now was to determine a specific research direction and assign research tasks to the scientific research workers.
However, at this moment, his PhD student, Liu Hong, walked into the laboratory with a constipated expression while holding a brand new journal.
It was like he had something to say, but he didn't know what to say.
Wang Haifeng looked at his student and frowned.
"What happened?"
Liu Hong hesitated for a bit and made up his mind.
"Professor … Our research project seems to have clashed with someone else."
Wang Haifeng, who was sitting in his office chair, nearly choked on his own saliva.
"What? What did you say? Clashed? "
What the hell?
How is this possible?
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