Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Lu Zhou had always been paying attention to his peers.
On the arXiv website, theses regarding hollow carbon spheres and sulfur composites started to pop up.
Although biology and chemistry were in STEM, an innovative idea did not have any value. Therefore, compared to pure mathematics, theoretical physics, or computer science, biology and chemistry scholars had far less enthusiasm for submitting papers on arXiv. However, trending topics still influenced the academic community.
At the same time, Lu Zhou could use academic search engines to find out whether there had been an uprise in hollow carbon spheres related results.
However, these results weren’t as groundbreaking as HCS-1.
Of course, some large research institutes had made significant progress. However, they were more ambitious and didn’t want to publish in-progress research.
After all, even though companies like Nichia and Umicore were willing to purchase patent authorizations with people like Lu Zhou, they would rather have the patent all to themselves.
Lu Zhou could see these signs from his last meeting with Grynberg. Without a doubt, their laboratory in Belgium was working non-stop trying to take the throne from Lu Zhou.
Therefore, Lu Zhou had to amp up his speed.
…
In the middle of March, after Lu Zhou received a reply from Science regarding his submission, he contacted Yang Xu, who was in Jinling, and arranged for a short video conference. He wanted to discuss the research plan with him.
Before the video call, Lu Zhou sent the related HCS-1 materials to Yang Xu’s work email. The email contained both the data that had already been submitted as well as the unpublished data.
Because of this, as soon as the call began, Yang Xu immediately asked, “The thing you sent me was about?”
Lu Zhou put it concisely by saying, “The next experiment plan and related materials are in that email. The physical samples will arrive soon. Simply put, I need you to try and find a method to stabilize and synthesize the HCS-1 material.”
The synthesizing method that Sarrot’s laboratory produced had a high variance. Strictly speaking, HCS-1 was only a by-product of this method; it could only be obtained using centrifugation and further purification.
Using this inefficient method, it was difficult to industrially produce HCS-1.
Unless someone was willing to pay US$100,000 just for one lithium battery and spend a ton more just to deal with the waste, from a logical standpoint, this battery was currently unfeasible.
There were two methods to promote HCS-1 material. One way was to change the preparation method and reduce production cost. The other way was to improve the material itself.
Using the HCS-1 as a reference idea, it wasn’t difficult to find HCS-2 or even HCS-3, which could be more suitable for mixing with sulfur.
Due to these reasons, Lu Zhou set up two research directions for the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials. One was to improve the production process of the HCS-1 material, and the other was to improve the HCS-1 material itself.
Unlike Sarrot’s laboratory, Lu Zhou had different requirements for the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials. Sarrot was responsible to complete the system mission of studying the topology of the molecules.
As for the Jinling Institute, they were responsible for solving the shuttle effect.
The energy industry needed to solve the shuttle effect, so did the country’s energy department. Whether it was from a personal standpoint or from a commitment to China’s energy department, Lu Zhou decided to work hard on this matter.
Yang Xu said, “This problem is difficult.”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “I believe you can do it.”
Yang Xu: “Is there a more specific direction you can give me?”
Lu Zhou said, “I do have an idea. Write this down so that I don’t have to send another email.”
Yang Xu nodded and took out a piece of pen and paper.
Lu Zhou drank some water and said, “Glucose.”
The two went silent for a moment.
Yang Xu then said, “… Glucose?”
Lu Zhou nodded and said, “Yes, specifically, the precursor from a copolymer of polyaniline and polypyrrole to glucose.”
This was the conclusion from Lu Zhou’s discussion with Sarrot. The reason they were able to reach this conclusion was due to their “scientific intuition” which was built from hundreds of experiments and calculations.
Although this “scientific intuition” might sound unreliable, it was at least better than “trial and error”.
However, this idea was yet to be confirmed.
Yang Xu’s eyebrow twitched.
“That’s it?”
Lu Zhou waved his hand and said with a certain tone, “That’s it.”
No wonder you didn’t want to send an email, you barely gave me anything.
Yang Xu couldn’t help but complain in his heart as he put the pen and paper aside.
Lu Zhou said, “We’re not the only ones researching this. I know Umicore and Nichia are also doing experiments. We are competing with international chemical giants. I know the mission is difficult, but I hope you can overcome it.”
Yang Xu couldn’t help but say, “If this really had potential, then you wouldn’t have mentioned it during the meeting.”
Lu Zhou was annoyed, and he said, “The situation at that time was special. Also, I didn’t expect them to arrogantly publish the content of the meeting.”
There was something else Lu Zhou didn’t say.
Which was that he didn’t expect so many to believe his words at the meeting…
…
The hollow carbon spheres had potential, and therefore, it had no shortage of competitors.
In the academic world, ideas were the least valuable.
Other than international chemistry giants like Nichia and Umicore, there were many other research institutes doing similar research. Some of them were partnered with a company, others received fundings from the government.
For example, Professor Wang Haifeng was one of them.
Far away at Zhi University, he was also busy working on the project.
However, he wasn’t working on the experiment, he was working on the preparations for the experiment.
Around two weeks ago, the laboratory research project was finally confirmed. It was regarding using hollow carbon spheres and sulfur composites as the positive electrode in order to solve the problem of diffusion of polysulfide compounds into the electrolyte. Although he didn’t like Lu Zhou, he had to admit that the hollow carbon spheres had potential.
He had already sent in his research fund application, and he should be getting a reply within a few days.
As the boss of the laboratory, right now he had to delegate work to his researchers.
Suddenly, his PhD student, Liu Hong, walked into the laboratory while holding a journal magazine.
Liu Hong looked like he had something to say but didn’t want to say anything.
Wang Haifeng looked at his student and asked, “What happened?”
Liu Hong hesitated for a bit before speaking, “Professor… Someone else is also doing our research project.”
Wang Haifeng, who was leaning on his office chair, nearly choked on his own saliva.
“What? Someone else is doing the same thing as us?”
What the hell is this?
How was this possible?
I haven’t even received the research project grant, who copied our idea?
