Chapter 75: Silicon-Aluminum Alloy

If the first two new materials are still merely at the forefront of Blue Star’s existing material system, the third new material is set to bring about a revolution in materials.

This new material is a binary material, synthesized from purified aluminum and silicon in a certain proportion under high temperature and high pressure, catalyzed by six catalysts, and purified with three molecular exchange agents, finally synthesized in a certain state.

Du Qiu simply named this material silicon-aluminum alloy, and the method to produce this alloy, except for the primary purification steps, will completely adopt the production processes from his dreams.

With this material, at least Du Qiu can use it to produce the rotor of the high-speed centrifuge, thereby significantly reducing costs and ensuring high-speed centrifuges no longer pose as an obstacle.

Previously, Du Qiu was blocked by the super micro magnetic field and felt it was almost impossible to manufacture this material—it’s currently the most suitable material he can find for the rotor.

Now, with new inspiration and using a mid-level purification process, Du Qiu believes that even if he can’t reach the performance parameters set by alien civilizations, as long as he can reach half, it will still be a revolution.

In reality, the two raw materials, industrial-grade aluminum and polycrystalline silicon, have already achieved or even surpassed the product state after primary purification.

Du Qiu just needs to base on this, use two molecular exchange agents for two purification cleanings, and he can remove the last bit of impurities from both materials.

Then, by treating the two pure substances in a closed container with six catalytic processes, silicon-aluminum alloy can be obtained.

This alloy has excellent properties: its tensile strength reaches 180 GPa, which is more than 300 times that of steel, but its weight is only one-fifth of steel’s.

Its modulus of elasticity can reach 2 TPa, which is 10 times that of steel. Its hardness reaches twice that of titanium alloy.

This alloy material has already surpassed the performance of carbon nanotubes.

Of course, what made Du Qiu absolutely love it is that the large-scale production cost is only 1.2 times that of steel.

This means that Blue Star now has a material with costs comparable to steel, but with better performance than titanium alloy.

Most importantly, it also has excellent high-temperature resistance.

With it, Du Qiu will be able to complete the rotor of the molecular-level high-speed centrifuge.

After receiving new inspiration in his dream last night, he spent the morning preparing experiments and was delayed until now due to the capture of Chen Han Sheng at noon.

Among the three materials, the third is most revolutionary, in other words, Du Qiu wouldn’t dare to reveal such a new material unless his Dream Technology has grown to a certain height.

But now, the first material Du Qiu experiments with is precisely this one.

Because this is the material that Du Qiu found as an alternative to the titanium alloy rotor, and to truly mass-produce various new materials at low cost, the cost of the high-speed centrifuge must be reduced.

Even though Du Qiu has already formulated quite a few catalysts and molecular exchange agents from the dreams, only by actually using the production techniques from the dreams to prepare one new material can he truly feel secure.

In other words, Du Qiu was worried that the technological knowledge in his dreams was all imagined, after all, the components of catalysts and molecular exchange agents exist on Blue Star.

Who knows if he has some magical ability and just fantasized a certain formula in his dreams?

The key is that these catalysts and molecular exchange agents have not yet been truly used in the production process to prove their effectiveness.

The silicon-aluminum alloy is different as it’s unprecedented on Blue Star; because using the smelting methods here, one would never get such a binary alloy.

Such an unprecedented thing made by oneself proves the extraterrestrial civilization in the dreams to be credible and real.

Entering dreams through the crystal pillow and connecting to the extraterrestrial civilization’s super machine, it’s been almost half a month, and Du Qiu still feels it is illusory.

What if all of this is just a hallucination produced by his long-term headache and triggered by the crystal pillow?

After all, the dreams of ordinary people are also very real, only too few details are remembered.

Actually, these thoughts are a kind of Du Qiu’s anxiety.

But once new materials are truly produced, Du Qiu can then confidently learn the technological knowledge in the dreams and gradually realize it in reality.

As time went on, Du Qiu conducted multiple experiments.

The road of scientific research is never smooth sailing.

Many experiments have been carried out, and without exception, all have failed.

The silicon-aluminum alloy obtained from the experiment always has the wrong proportion, and therefore the properties have failed to meet expectations.

“It seems that without the high-speed centrifuge and not going through the mid-level purification process once, there might be some deviations in the purity of the two elements.”

Du Qiu, reluctantly, had to stop the experiment and seems he must continue to wait for the arrival of the titanium alloy rotor.

At night, entering the dream, Du Qiu first memorized the location of the white vortex he passes in and out of, but he did not continue to match the white vortex with the sub-intelligent cores.

Instead, he carefully studied the production process of the silicon-aluminum alloy material again, wanting to confirm that there was nothing he remembered wrong or omitted in the afternoon’s experiment.

As for studying the other three super machines, it’s not urgent for now; after all, he has already checked the situation in the steel jungle on several consecutive nights.

Sadly, it’s always been unchanged, making Du Qiu lose interest.

Perhaps all the activities and connections between those three super machines and the producer he’s with happen when he’s not in the dream.

Since he can’t see it and doesn’t dare to use the sensing system for surveillance recording, he might as well wait until he has mastered the producer’s technological knowledge to study them.

Based on the current production speed of the producer, such a resource-rich planet is enough for them to mine and produce for a long time.

Therefore, Du Qiu is not very anxious; as long as he isn’t discovered by the maintainers, he can always enter the dreams and slowly enjoy this huge technological treasure.

Du Qiu spent the entire May Day holiday immersed in the experiment of the silicon-aluminum alloy.

Although the titanium alloy rotor has not yet arrived during this time, Du Qiu has already experimented and tested the entire production process, except the high-speed centrifuge part.

The pure elemental materials for the silicon-aluminum alloy are all ready to go; everything is waiting for the high-speed centrifuge rotor to arrive, and then a comprehensive experiment can proceed.

In addition, Du Qiu also experimented with carbon fiber and graphene.

Both of these new materials are single-element substances; carbon fiber can be produced industrially, while the current industrial production methods for graphene have not achieved large-scale levels.

Du Qiu originally thought that these two single-element materials, using the existing high-purity raw materials on Blue Star, may only need to go through catalysis and molecular exchange processes to obtain the final products.

However, after many experiments he conducted, without the complete mid-level purification process, both ended up like the silicon-aluminum alloy, unable to yield the final products.

Ultimately, Du Qiu can’t avoid the high-speed centrifuge.

Du Qiu has now prepared a uniform magnetic field generator and needs to combine it with the high-speed centrifuge.