On August 26, 1974, Hou Debang, an outstanding Chinese chemist and the founder of Hou's alkali method, died at the age of 84.
Tsinghua Garden has a full score of academic bully
In 1890, Hou Debang was born in Minhou County, Fujian Province, to an ordinary peasant family. Hou Debang loved to read since childhood, even if he helped his parents do farm work, he still kept his books in his hands, leaving a beautiful talk of "trailer study".
How good is Hou Debang reading? In 1911, Hou Debang gave up his job to enter the Peking Tsinghua Preparatory School for Studying in the United States, and shocked TsinghuaYuan with an impressive score of 1,000 points in 10 homework courses. In 1913, Hou Wasbong was sent to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States to study chemical engineering.
In 1918, Hou Debang participated in the research of the Columbia University Research Institute, and successively obtained master's and doctoral degrees. His published doctoral thesis "Iron Salt Tanning Leather" is still a classic document widely cited in the tanning industry.
The first person to make alkali in China
Fan Xudong is in Hou Debang, and is like Bole in Maxima. After completing his studies in the United States, Hou Debang was invited by Fan Xudong to serve as the chief technician of Wynn. The problem facing Hou Debang is to break through the technical blockade of Britain and the United States and independently produce high-quality soda ash.
At that time, foreign alkali production used the Solvay alkali method. In order to monopolize soda ash technology, Britain, the United States, France, Germany and other countries initiated the organization of solvay guild, the design drawings are only open to member states, absolutely confidential to the outside world. Where improvements or discoveries are made, Member States communicate with each other and agree not to apply for patents in order to prevent leakage.
In order to delve into the alkali making technology, Hou Debang used a lot of money to buy a brief copy of the "Solvay Method". After several years of exploration, Hou Debang led the skilled workers to solve a series of technical problems and successfully produced white soda ash.
In August 1926, at the World Exposition held in Philadelphia, USA, the "Red Triangle" brand of high-quality soda ash produced by the Wynn Alkali Plant won the gold medal. You know, the Solvay alkali method also won the bronze medal that year.
If Hou Debang had kept the alkali-making technology as a foreign capitalist had kept secrets, he would have become a billionaire long ago. However, Hou Debang did not hide this technology, but wrote a book "Soda Ash Manufacturing" to the public to benefit the world.
Invented Hou's alkali making method
In 1938, due to the turmoil of the war, the Yongli alkali factory was forced to relocate to Sichuan.
Sichuan is inland and has only expensive well salt. With the use of Solvay alkali production, the utilization rate of table salt is not high. In order to reduce the cost of alkali production in Sichuan, Hou Debang went to Germany to investigate, and wanted to buy the Cha'an alkali production method with a salt utilization rate of up to 90%.
However, at that time, Germany and Japan secretly colluded to put forward humiliating conditions to Hou Debang. An enraged Hou Debang suspended negotiations and decided to study a new alkali production method himself. In order to improve the utilization rate of raw materials and reduce the waste yield, Hou Debang came up with the idea of combining Solvay's alkali production method and synthetic ammonia method.
Just do it! Hou Debang led the technicians to conduct more than 500 tests, analyze more than 2,000 samples, and finally successfully invented a new alkali production method - the combined alkali production method. The combined alkali production method increases the utilization rate of salt to 96%, and also converts waste calcium chloride into agricultural fertilizer ammonium chloride, which greatly surpasses Solvay's alkali production method.
In 1943, in recognition of Hou Debang's outstanding contribution to the new alkali production method, the Chinese Society of Chemical Engineers named the joint alkali production method as Hou's alkali production method.
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