Chapter 185 Start the Experiment!

"You want to borrow the lab?"

On the phone, after hearing Lu Zhou's request, Professor Li Rongen, who was analyzing samples in the carbon nanomaterials laboratory, frowned suspiciously.

Holding the mobile phone, Lu Zhou said with a smile: "Yes, I found some interesting things when I was researching the literature. If I want to operate it in the laboratory, I may need to use a glue spreader and a digital microscope."

Of course he made up the reason. Although he and Professor Li have a good personal relationship, they haven't confided in each other to that extent. It's not that he doubts Professor Li's character, it's just to avoid some unnecessary conflicts of interest.

After all, the value of an invention of this level cannot be measured by a mere SCI.

Especially for people in the industry.

"That's fine. I'll say hello to the teacher in charge of the laboratory later. You can just go to Office 304 of the laboratory building and find Professor Wang Xianfu."

Although he was curious as to why Lu Zhou, who is engaged in high-energy physics, ran to do this kind of experiment, Professor Li Rongen didn't ask too much, just as a hobby, he readily agreed.

If other people borrowed these devices, he would hesitate to some extent, and refuse those who are not familiar with them, but Lu Zhou is different. Last time, his paper on computational materials science helped him a lot.

That was a billion-dollar project, and the direct and indirect economic benefits were as high as tens of millions, not to mention that as one of the shareholders of Zhongshan New Materials, he was also a direct beneficiary.

In comparison, what is this little favor?

It's just a little effort, and it's not even a favor to him.

Professor Li agreed so readily that Lu Zhou felt a little embarrassed.

If I had known that this old man was so talkative, why would he borrow a bicycle like a digital microscope? He might as well have borrowed a SEM scanning electron microscope...

"Is there anything else?" Seeing that Lu Zhou didn't speak, Professor Li asked with a smile.

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "No, thank you Professor."

"Can you do the experiment by yourself? How about I send Qian Zhongming to help you?"

Lu Zhou politely declined: "No, I want to try to do it myself."

Of course he couldn't agree.

An expert like Senior Brother Qian might be able to spot the problem at a glance.

At that time, many things cannot be explained by themselves, no matter who designed the experiment or how it was all done.

This experiment is destined to be done only by himself.

"That's fine, just remember not to break the instrument, or don't blame me and go to your boss to complain."

Knowing that Professor Li was joking with himself, Lu Zhou smiled and said: "No, don't worry! I guarantee that the laboratory will look like it was borrowed, and it will look like it when you return it!"

...

After getting the key from Mr. Wang in the 304 office, Lu Zhou's next plan can finally start.

According to the reverse technology of the scanning gun, the key to solving the problem of lithium dendrite growth lies in the processing of polydimethylsilane materials.

In order to solve this problem, the experimental idea he designed is divided into two steps: fabrication and spin coating.

However, the crux of the problem still lies in the processing of PDMS materials.

Untreated PDMS material, even if it is coated on a copper sheet, is useless at all. Lithium dendrites will rise or rise, and the explosion will still explode.

Materials science is different from mathematics. The former must sum up experience in countless experiments and invest a lot of money. However, if the latter does not consider consulting the literature, one can start research with a piece of paper and a pen, and most of the research funds are used On travel expenses for meetings.

Lu Zhou thought about it for almost a whole day, but he couldn't find a suitable method. In the end, he had to be ruthless and spent 500 points to ask the system for help in this link, and got the production formula.

Looking at the points that had changed back to 1975, he still felt a severe pain in his heart.

This thing is really expensive. The point rewards for his several missions are only 500 points, which is only enough to exchange for a PDMS material processing method.

If the entire battery technology is obtained by points, I am afraid that the points consumed are enough to "buy" a Goldbach's conjecture.

Although it took a lot of points, fortunately, the materials used in the formula can be found in the laboratory, and those that cannot be found can be borrowed from the next-door laboratory.

It took a full three days and after countless failures, Lu Zhou finally managed to prepare a qualified PDMS material - a bottle of waxy yellow gel.

This thing looks like honey, but is full of jelly texture. It seems that there is nothing special on the surface, but the sample is placed under the electron microscope to observe its microstructure, but it is very different from ordinary liquid polydimethylsiloxane.

Without staying in this short-lived joy of victory, Lu Zhou struck while the iron was hot, put the rectangular copper foil prepared in advance in the glue spreader, and started the second most critical step of making electrode materials——

Spin coating!

The so-called spin coating method is a coating process that relies on the centrifugal force and gravity generated when the workpiece is rotated to spread the coating droplets falling on the workpiece on the surface of the workpiece.

This operation requires high technical skills of the experimenters, and it is not as simple as a mobile phone film.

Uneven coating is likely to cause lithium ions to be unable to be uniformly precipitated on the negative electrode material. Lithium dendrites are not used to pierce the separator. After several sets of charge and discharge cycles, it will grow crooked and unusable.

Although Lu Zhou had tried it with other materials before, he still failed many times.

After a whole morning of tossing, he managed to obtain a precious piece of "copper foil uniformly coated with PDMS nanoporous film".

Looking at the copper foil clamped on the tweezers, Lu Zhou couldn't help feeling emotional.

If you know what this thing is and what it is useful for, no one will think it expensive if you offer a price of hundreds of millions of dollars, right?

Feeling complacent for a while, Lu Zhou packed up the samples, including the remaining PDMS materials in the glass medicine bottles, and took away all of them.

Now there is one last step left.

That is to make a simple battery and test the performance of this film to see if it is as amazing as he imagined.

Lu Zhou, who has seen Brother Qian's demonstration, is basically familiar with the operation, although he is not very proficient this time.

In another laboratory, Lu Zhou smartly changed into a white coat "battle robe", reached into the argon-filled glove box, and carefully fixed the copper foil covered with PDMS nanoporous film on the on the battery mold.

As for the binder is sodium carboxymethyl cellulose and styrene-butadiene rubber, the current collector is aluminum foil, and the positive electrode active material is still LiFePO4, which is commonly used in lithium-ion batteries today!

As for the diaphragm, Lu Zhou chose the Celgard 2325 three-layer diaphragm as always.

In addition to the major changes in the negative electrode materials, the other materials are basically the "original team" of the last lithium dendrite observation experiment, and there are only slight changes in the dosage at most.

After completing the final assembly operation, Lu Zhou still didn't dare to be careless, carefully took out the samples, and closed the air valves of the glove box.

It wasn't until he finished all the steps that he breathed a sigh of relief, and gently wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.

"Done!"

Looking at the battery sample in his hand, Lu Zhou was filled with excitement.

And, a trace of piety that even he himself didn't expect.

Yes, it is pious.

As a scientific researcher, I am devoted to science.

This technology is likely to come from a civilization that is more advanced than all civilizations on the earth combined. Compared with the meaning of its own existence, the economic value hidden behind it is much dimmer.

Maybe it came from the ruins of a battlefield, or maybe it came from a trash can next to some nondescript interstellar playground.

But no matter where it came from, the one who brought it back from the wreckage was me.

Taking a deep breath, restraining the excitement in his heart, Lu Zhou connected the battery sample to the BK-6808 rechargeable battery tester, and carefully placed it under the digital microscope.

Everything is ready, all that needs to be done is to wait.

I hope the final result will not disappoint him.

After setting 10 minutes to take a photo, Lu Zhou turned on the power of the battery tester, then took out a document on the latest research progress of the Polignac conjecture from the computer bag, and quietly studied it.