Chapter 266 Big News!

Chemistry is a big pit. Although this pit is not as big as biology and materials, there are still many graduates buried in it.

One reason is the danger, especially in organic chemistry, which requires constant working with reagents. Don't think that nothing will happen if you memorize the safety manual. When something really happens, you don't even know what happened in the reaction room?

The other one is salary. Although many lists related to the starting salary of graduation like to rank applied chemistry first, the situation is actually quite different. As for why you say that, you can just look at the general environment of the entire chemical industry and do not make an evaluation.

However, Lu Zhou felt that Han Mengqi did not need to worry about at least the last one.

Anyway, even if she studied chemistry, she might not end up doing this job, and even if she did this job, she would not rely on it to buy a house. Anyway, she has a rich mother...

Sister Chen, who was sitting in the co-pilot, was guiding the way, and Lu Zhou was in charge of driving and taking pictures. The four spent a whole day in Philadelphia.

Perhaps it was because the joyous atmosphere diluted the depression in her heart, Han Mengqi seemed to be in a much better mood.

But the one who had the most fun was Xiaotong. This little guy seemed to have inexhaustible energy, and he never stopped chattering along the way.

Because the lively and active Xiaotong has a somewhat familiar personality, she soon became acquainted with Chen Xuejie and Meng Qi, and added WeChat and QQ to each other while resting in the fast food restaurant.

Especially when she learned that Meng Qi was also playing King of Kings, Xiaotong didn't even eat the half-eaten hamburger, and started the game without saying a word.

Looking at the game interface on Xiaotong's phone, Han Mengqi asked in surprise, "You also play King?"

Xiaotong proudly said: "Play, play, I'm amazing."

Han Mengqi continued to ask with great interest: "What rank are you?"

"Diamond!" Xiaotong continued with a confident face, paused for a moment, "but for the time being, my stats are still bronze, but there is no doubt that my strength has already reached the diamond level, and it is only a matter of time before I get that frame .”

Han Mengqi: "..."

Hearing the conversation between the two, Chen Yushan, who was biting a Coke straw, suppressed a smile, while Lu Zhou, who was sitting next to her, rolled her eyes.

Undoubtedly, regarding stubbornness, she definitely meets the standard of "Stubborn Bronze".

Other than that, it's probably a little bit worse...

...

With the arrival of Xiaotong, Lu Zhou's daily life has not changed too much. The only difference is that there is one more person who needs to be taken care of, and the place where he sleeps every day. Became a sofa.

Although his original plan was to move out of this student apartment after returning to Princeton, a new address has not yet been selected.

He now has two choices, one is the faculty apartment prepared for him by the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, and the other is a two-story villa with a front yard and a garage located between Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study.

In fact, it is a villa, which is just an elegant name. This kind of country house is very common in the United States, even if you have not been there, you can see it in American TV dramas. In a country like Princeton, the average price of this kind of house is only 200,000 to 300,000 US dollars, and the rent is not too expensive.

Lu Zhou's original intention was to choose the latter, because parking is convenient. However, the owner is a stubborn New York old man who only sells but not rents. And Lu Zhou only has 500,000 US dollars on him now. Although he doesn't have money to buy it, he doesn't want to spend half of his net worth to buy a house that won't last for a few years.

After all, he will return to China in a few years, and buying a house is definitely not as cost-effective as renting.

Although Lu Zhou also considered other houses, they were either inappropriate or already rented out, so the matter of moving was put on hold.

Fortunately, Xiaotong is not picky about where he lives. Apart from always pulling his arm and begging him to drive him to Philadelphia to meet his seniors, Lu Zhou didn't feel too troublesome during this time.

This kind of busy life interspersed with leisure lasted until late August, when the new issue of "Natural Chemistry" was published, it was gradually broken...

...

In late August, the Rio Olympics had just ended, and the news hot spot had not yet withdrawn from the condemnation of black whistle, a piece of news quietly appeared on the technology panels of major newspapers.

The cause is a paper published in the sub-journal of "Nature" "Natural Chemistry".

Its title is only a simple line, but it has caught the attention of all industry insiders.

There is no other reason.

Because the contributor proposed a new type of PDMS material, and claimed that the problem of lithium dendrites could be effectively solved by spin-coating the material on the surface of negative lithium. If the paper had been published in another journal, it might not have even attracted much attention.

However, this paper was published in a sub-journal of "Nature"!

The fields of materials science and batteries, which were originally calm, suddenly set off turbulent waves.

Although it is not the first time that the material science community has been shocked by the "breakthrough" of lithium batteries, this time it is obviously different, because the reviewer is Professor Bavundi, and according to the reviewer's evaluation, he seems to have repeated experiments Made an amazing discovery...

Naturally, such amazing news would not simply be buried.

A few days after the paper was published, after receiving positive opinions from several experts in the industry, it was highlighted by the main journals "Nature" and "Science", which will be released soon.

The so-called "Highlights" is probably similar to reprinting, but it is different from reprinting.

For example, if you publish an article in journal A, which has a major breakthrough in a certain field or direction, and is favored by journal B, the journal will find a talented person in this field and publish your article in journal A The highlights of the article are summarized and published in B journals (some of them write Highlights themselves).

This situation is relatively common in the two fields of chemistry and biology. It is not new for articles published in sub-journals to be selected by the main journal, but it is relatively rare for articles to be highlighted by both "Nature" and "Science" of.

Compared with the calmness of the industry, the attitude of the academic community towards this paper can be described as "fanatic".

If the paper is true, most of them will not be harmed by it, but will benefit from it.

The reason is simple. The industry's concerns about lithium batteries are mainly focused on a series of safety issues caused by lithium dendrites. If the problem of lithium dendrites can be solved smoothly, there is no doubt that a large amount of research and development funds will pour into this field.

Even if a few laboratories that study anode materials are cut off, more funds and topics will pour in.

Therefore, in less than a short week, almost 80% of the laboratories that study lithium batteries have carried out repeated experiments on this paper.

This grand occasion quickly attracted the attention of the press.

A reporter from the CBS Science and Technology column did an interview with Professor Ross Krell at Cornell University.

Coincidentally, when the Columbia TV reporter arrived, Professor Krell's laboratory was just repeating the experiment on the paper, and it had already reached the final stage.

When asked about the significance of this technology, Professor Krell said with a serious face.

"...Our research team is repeating the experiment, and if this is not an accident, this technology will undoubtedly change the face of the entire industry."

"Because whether it is a lithium-sulfur battery or a lithium-air battery at the concept stage, the problem of dendrites cannot be avoided. In turn, the problem of lithium dendrites can be solved on the negative electrode material, and we don't even have to make too much of the previous design. For major changes, just replace the anode material directly.”

Professor Krell's answer made the reporter's eyes sparkle with excitement.

There is no doubt that the big news he wants is right in front of him.

"But Professor Krell, according to our interview with the former head of the IBM Group's lithium-air battery project, the feedback is that the industry has a pessimistic attitude towards this technology. What do you think of this matter?"

Professor Krell thought for a while and replied: "It's normal to be pessimistic, because every once in a while there are laboratories claiming to have solved the lithium dendrite problem, and it is necessary to be cautious about new technologies. To be honest, even now, I'm still skeptical, because the solution proposed by the contributors in the paper is not new, and even a bit outdated."

The reporter immediately asked: "Why do you say that?"

Professor Krell: "Because our current mainstream method is to increase the viscosity of the electrolyte, or even directly use solid materials. Or make a carbon material structure on the lithium negative electrode, which limits the shape of lithium metal growth during discharge, and also when charging. It can ensure that the negative electrode structure does not collapse after all the lithium enters the positive electrode. The design of coating the negative electrode material used by Professor Lu has actually been tried countless times in many laboratories twenty years ago. And..."

Reporter: "And?"

Professor Krell shrugged: "And he's a professor of mathematics. I don't know much about computational materials, which is a relatively new and emerging discipline, but even so, I know that there are many things that just building models is not enough."

However, at this moment, cheers suddenly sounded in the laboratory behind.

After hearing this voice, both Professor Krell and the reporter were stunned.

Reporter: "What happened?"

Professor Krell and his assistant looked at each other, and looked at the reporter with a strange expression.

"I don't know... Maybe it was successful?"