Chapter 325 Returning to San Francisco

The meeting took place at the Hyatt Hotel, located in Union Square, a short walk from Chinatown. The hotel provides in-house dining venues and a 24-hour gym, and there are special conference rooms that can provide venues for academic conferences.

After driving Lu Zhou to the destination, Sarot parked the car in the underground garage and walked to the elevator with Lu Zhou.

This kind of meeting is not only a good opportunity to exchange academic issues with peers, but also a good opportunity to expand contacts. Opportunities like this are not easily passed up by any aspiring researcher.

Of course, unlike his boss, from the moment Lu Zhou got on the plane, all expenses were reimbursed by the organizer. Sarot had to pay for this meeting out of his own pocket.

Standing on the elevator, Lu Zhou looked at Sarot: "I plan to go upstairs to sleep, how about you?"

Sarot glanced at Lu Zhou in disbelief: "You're actually planning to go to bed? There's still a dance in a while."

"I can't dance," Lu Zhou yawned, and said with a lack of interest, "and it's enough to attend this kind of banquet once."

On the evening of the seminar, there was a larger, more formal dance.

As for this kind of warm-up party for academic exchanges, it doesn't matter to him whether he participates or not.

After a few hours on the plane, all he wants now is to lie in bed and sleep to recharge his batteries for tomorrow's awards ceremony and speech.

Sarot made a helpless expression: "Then you go to sleep, I will go to the lobby on the first floor to stay for a while. Do you want me to order a dinner for you to deliver to your room?"

Lu Zhou waved his hand: "No, you have fun by yourself. If I'm hungry, I'll call the front desk."

Sarot's room is on the third floor. Before going to the dance, he still needs to make some preparations, such as adding some mousse to his hair.

As for Lu Zhou, he took the elevator and continued up to the fifth floor.

Walking through the corridor covered with red carpet, when passing the rest area in the middle of the corridor, two men in suits noticed him, immediately stopped talking, got up from the sofa, and greeted him.

Lu Zhou took a surprised look at the two who were walking towards him, and felt that one of them looked familiar, but he couldn't name him.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Lu from Princeton. It's a pleasure to meet you here." The familiar-looking old man extended his right hand, shook hands with Lu Zhou, and said enthusiastically.

"Hello... May I ask who you are?"

"Stanley Whittingham, SUNY Binghamton," the old man introduced himself politely.

Hearing this name, Lu Zhou's expression suddenly showed a hint of bewilderment.

Stanley Whittingham (Stanley·Whittingham), this person is also a big cow in the field of lithium batteries, no wonder he feels familiar.

As for how awesome this old man is, as early as the 1970s, he used titanium sulfide as the positive electrode material and metal lithium as the negative electrode material to design the earliest lithium battery. And this is also recognized as the earliest lithium battery.

However, because of the well-known safety problems caused by lithium dendrites, lithium batteries have not been able to successfully get out of the laboratory. It wasn't until Lu Zhou's modified PDMS material solved this problem that the lithium battery was considered to have completed the transformation from bomb to battery.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Lu Zhou shook hands with Stanley, and looked at the person standing next to him, "Who is this?"

Professor Stanley introduced: "This is Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil."

"Nice to meet you, Professor Lu." Darren Woods smiled at Lu Zhou and stretched out his right hand, "The papers you published in "Nature" and "Science" are impressive, but some of the views are true. It's too difficult to understand, I'm afraid I have a lot to ask you for advice."

Although I have never heard of Darren Woods, I have heard of Exxon Mobil Lu Zhou.

Remember that just two months ago, the CEO of Mobil was Rex Tillerson. However, as a certain real estate tycoon came to power, this executive who was named "the world's most influential CEO" in 2016 submitted his resignation and became the Secretary of State.

It seems that this Woods is Tillerson's successor.

"Hello," shaking hands with the CEO, Lu Zhou looked at him in surprise and asked, "Mr. Woods is also interested in lithium batteries?"

Woods smiled slightly: "Of course, petroleum is a valuable chemical raw material, and it is too wasteful to burn it. Compared with gasoline, we are more willing to turn it into a chemical raw material. In fact, in order to alleviate a series of climate change such as global warming Problem, we have been committed to investment in the new energy field, and batteries are naturally a vital part of it.”

Although ExxonMobil is an oil and gas company, it is not only involved in oil and gas, but also in chemical, automobile, new energy and other industries.

The earliest lithium battery was made in Professor Stanley's laboratory, and the funder was Mobil Chemical.

Lu Zhou smiled, but didn't speak.

It is normal for Mobil to be interested in the new energy field, and he would feel strange if he is not interested. But it would be ridiculous to say that the reason is because of social responsibility like global warming.

Looking at Lu Zhou with piercing eyes, Woods smiled and continued to ask: "Speaking of which, has there been any progress in the synthesis process of the HCS-1 material?"

Lu Zhou shook his head: "Not yet."

"That's really regrettable," Woods sighed, and said in a rather regretful tone, "It's a very good material, but its price is really unacceptable."

Obviously, Mobil Chemical also followed the method described by Lu Zhou in the paper, using carbon nanotubes and fullerene materials for co-thermal reaction, and screened a small amount of HCS-1, and mixed it with Elemental sulfur was mixed.

Although the number of cycles and cycle efficiency are not friendly, its excellent energy density is still coveted.

For example, quadrotor UAVs, some underwater operation equipment, and fields that require high endurance performance, there is still a lot of space for lithium-sulfur batteries

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "That's right, but in my opinion it still has a lot of flaws."

Woods shook his head: "No, no, no, you don't understand. Not all batteries have such strict requirements on cycle times and cycle efficiency. Sometimes we also use replaceable disposable batteries in order to pursue energy density."

After a pause, Woods smiled and offered the invitation: "If this technical problem is solved, the whole world will benefit a lot. I wonder if you need some funding?"

Lu Zhou shook his head: "Unfortunately, I don't need it for my research, maybe you can consider investing in some laboratories with more potential."

"That's such a shame, there's no one in my opinion who has more potential to do this great work than you."

This is the second time Woods said the word "regret", but although he said so, his expression did not look regretful.

Obviously, Mobil-funded laboratories are also conducting similar research.

And I am afraid that many results have been produced, but the phased results have not been published.

After glancing at Professor Stanley standing next to him, Lu Zhou understood a little.

These two people had come to inquire about the progress of their own research.

Thinking of this, Lu Zhou couldn't help but shook his head with a smile in his heart.

Want to know the progress of his research?

It's easy to say, just buy a copy of "Science" and read it.

He never hid it.

After chatting for a few words, he found that the two had been testing him. Lu Zhou suddenly felt a little lack of interest, so he said goodbye and walked to his room with his suitcase.

Watching the big man leave, Woods gradually put away the smile on his face and looked at Professor Stanley next to him.

"How far do you think his research has progressed?"

Professor Stanley frowned slightly: "It's hard to say, this person hides very deeply. If the two papers published in "Science" are all his current research progress, we still have a great chance of winning in this area. But I don't believe that's all there is to it."

After a pause, Professor Stanley's expression was a little dignified, and he continued to speak in a serious tone.

"Didn't you notice? Although we have been testing his research progress, he is completely indifferent to our research progress, and he is not even interested in asking..."