Chapter 1005 Man-made Fibers
New Frankfort.
As an emerging city, the industrial level of New Frankfurt continues to rise. During the First Five-Year Plan, a large number of high-quality projects were launched in the area. In particular, high-quality industries such as textile industry, equipment manufacturing industry, automobile manufacturing, and electronic product manufacturing industry are booming.
The regional advantages of New Frankfurt are mainly reflected in the field of transportation. The local area is one of the most important land transportation hubs in East Africa. Waterways, railways and roads intensively intersect here, stretching across the entire East Africa like the tentacles of an octopus.
A section of the East African Grand Canal passes through the city of New Frankfurt and is used to connect the Congo River Basin and Zambezi River Basin water systems. Of course, it does not pass through the city, but passes through its subordinate jurisdictions.
This canal has already connected the copper mining belt and the southern cities and opened some sections of the Congo River tributaries and Zambezi River tributaries to navigation. The entire section is more than 180 kilometers long. This crazy project has been in use recently. East Africa in 2001 was not an exception. A large number of black people fell under the horrific scale of infrastructure in East Africa.
The artificial canal takes advantage of the topography of the Katanga Plateau and flows from northeast to southwest. Therefore, the main water source comes from the Congo River Basin, which has more abundant rain. It not only improves navigation capacity, but is also a water diversion project, effectively carrying out water treatment in the Zambezi River Basin. Replenish.
Its source mainly comes from the tributaries of the Lualaba River in the upper reaches of the Congo River, so the overall water volume is relatively abundant. There is a ditch system for farmland irrigation along the river, which plays a major role in stabilizing the grain production around Rhine City.
After all, the annual precipitation around Rhine City has reached more than 800 millimeters. Through the water diversion project, water source security near the capital area and the entire Central Province can be basically guaranteed.
The Central Province is originally located in the climate transition zone between savanna and tropical rainforest, so the precipitation is more and more stable as you go north, so the Central Province of the East African Grand Canal is very important.
As the area where the canal passes, New Frankfurt City is actually still some distance away from the urban area. However, the future urban development of New Frankfurt City will inevitably move closer to the canal section.
Some key enterprises, especially New Frankfurt's textile industry, chemical industry and other water-intensive industries are converging here. In the Central Province Canal section, New Frankfurt's man-made fiber factory is located here.
The factory was a key enterprise in the New Frankfurt City during the First Five-Year Plan period. It was officially built in March last year and has now begun production.
The man-made fiber factory in New Frankfurt is not large in scale and can only be regarded as a medium-sized enterprise, but it is highly valued by the government. Ernst came here specifically to inspect the first man-made fiber factory in East Africa.
Facing His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, the employees and management of the New Frankfurt Man-Made Fiber Factory were naturally very nervous. After all, man-made fibers had received Ernst's attention from the beginning, and today Ernst was here to inspect the results.
"Your Highness, this man-made fiber technology was introduced by us from the J.P. Bemberg Company in Germany. This technology has already appeared in the early 1990s."
“At that time, two German scientists, Brenner and Freme, made artificial cupramine by dissolving cellulose in cuprammonium solution, and obtained a patent for their invention.”
"Then in the late 1990s, J.P. Bemberg Company successfully applied the cuprammonium method, a new fiber manufacturing method, to industrial production. The government obtained the relevant technology through cooperation with Germany, and the industry finally landed in New Frankfurt."
This was the cupro wire in the previous life, but Ernst didn't know much about it, because the development of man-made fibers or chemical fibers around the world has just started.
In 1891, the Englishmen Cruise and Bevin decomposed cellulose with strong alkali and carbon disulfide, and then used a spin box to dehydrate and spin under the action of centrifugal force to produce viscose rayon.
This safe and cheap method of man-made fibers quickly became popular and is the most widely used method of producing man-made fibers. It can be seen from the time period that chemical fibers first started in the 1980s. They began to develop rapidly in the 1990s, and new technologies continued to emerge. The cupro wire technology introduced in East Africa was a product of the 1990s.
Therefore, the development of the chemical fiber industry in East Africa is not too late, and the new Frankfurt Chemical Fiber Factory is one of the important symbols.
Several key textile industry cities including Bulawayo, Mogadishu, Nairobi and Gezira have also introduced this technology.
The textile industry in New Frankfurt is also relatively developed. It is one of the important distribution centers for inland cotton, and the cupro wire technology overlaps with the developed areas of East Africa's cotton textile industry.
It has an important relationship with the raw materials it requires. The main raw material of cupro wire is cotton lint, which is the fluff on the outside of cotton seeds. The fiber extracted from the cotton lint through special processing is cupro wire.
So cupro ammonia fiber is a regenerated cellulose fiber. It is made by dissolving natural cellulose raw materials such as cotton linters in a concentrated ammonia solution of copper hydroxide or alkaline copper salt to form a spinning solution. In the coagulation bath, copper Ammonia cellulose molecular chemical decomposition regenerates cellulose, and the resulting hydrated cellulose is post-processed to obtain cuprammonium fiber.
Cupro wire, as the name suggests, has characteristics more consistent with "silk". The cross-section of cupro fiber is circular, without a sheath-core structure. The fiber can withstand a high degree of stretching, and the resulting monofilament is thinner. Therefore, the fabric of cupro silk products feels soft, has a soft luster, and has a silk feel.
In addition to cotton wool, cupro ammonia solution is indispensable for cupro wire. East Africa is an important copper-producing country, and ammonia production has also started, so there is no shortage of both.
The city of New Frankfurt began to use ammonia to produce cupro fiber based on the textile industry and the chemical industry.
"With the help of German experts, our factory has completely mastered this technology and is now ready for large-scale production."
Later, under the guidance of technical staff and management, Ernst visited the entire production process of cupro wire. Everything went smoothly and there were no mistakes. At the same time, Ernst personally experienced the feel of the finished product.
Ernst nodded and said: "The quality is acceptable. At least it feels somewhat similar to ordinary silk. It seems that you have indeed understood the relevant technology."
The factory director said: "Your Highness, in addition to the help of the Germans, the main thing to master this technology is our own talent advantage. It only took them a few days to master it. I don't think there are as many college students as I am." Good brain."
East African college students with high academic qualifications and certain knowledge of chemistry have obvious advantages over ordinary people, and this is with the help of the Germans. It would be embarrassing if they couldn't learn it.
Because this is not a new technology that I have broken through. In fact, East Africa must have trained many chemical talents in recent years, but it will take some time to produce results.
After all, East Africa mainly learns from European and American countries, and the chemical fibers in European and American countries have just started. If East Africa can quickly follow up, it has already met Ernst's psychological expectations.
The chemical industry is definitely one of the emerging industries of this era, and Germany is the leader. This also provides convenience for the development of the chemical industry in East Africa. That is, East Africa and Germany have close relations. If the Americans and British have the right to speak in the industry, It is much more difficult for East Africa to obtain relevant technologies.
Of course, if some emerging technologies can be obtained from other countries, it will definitely be beneficial to East Africa. However, East Africa itself has many chemical talents. As long as time is given, East Africa will definitely occupy a place in this field in the future.
(End of chapter)