Chapter 480: Experiment Success Rate

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The suburb name was called “Zhongshan International”, also known as the “legendary filthy rich suburb of Jinling”.

Lu Zhou remembered hearing about it back in college, but he didn’t remember who told him about it.

The entire suburb was filled with mansions, and it was located on the northeast side of the national grade 4A scenery area. The suburb covered an area of 3671 mu ¹ and had a plot ratio of only 0.168. It contained a golf course and also had a shopping mall nearby.

However, Lu Zhou didn’t really care about these things; he didn’t play golf nor did he like to shop.

As long as the house was adequate and the environment was decent, it was good enough for him.

“This house is pretty good.”

As Lu Zhou stood in this rustic study room and touched the bookshelf, he nodded with satisfaction.

w.a.n.g Peng walked to the side and touched the windows. He then pointed at the two trees outside and spoke.

“The position of the two trees outside isn’t good.”

Lu Zhou looked out the window and said, “Why do you say that? I think it’s pretty good.”

Without those two trees, the entire front yard would be naked; it would ruin the overall allure.

w.a.n.g Peng pointed and said, “It’s easy to create a blind spot in that position. If I climb over there and walk along the wall, I don’t even have to bend over; I bet you won’t see me.”

w.a.n.g Yalan raised her eyebrows and politely said, “Sir, there is a professional security team in the gated community, and there is no way for thieves to get in. Therefore, there’s no need to worry about these types of things.”

w.a.n.g Peng was amused, and he raised his eyebrows as he asked, “More professional than me?”

w.a.n.g Yalan was stunned; she didn’t know what to say.

What do you mean by more professional?

Are you a professional thief?

Lu Zhou gently coughed to end the conversation. He then said, “Don’t bother with the two trees. I’ll just install a camera there.”

To be honest, he wasn’t some kind of secret agent nor was he involved in weapon research. Anyway, he wasn’t going to put any important data at home. Even though being cautious was the correct thing to do, he didn’t have to be that careful.

There weren’t any scholars in the world that had a wider research area than his, but there were scholars that were nuttier than him; there were even a few in Princeton. He’d be crazy to think the conspiracy theories of attacking scholars were real.

As for what would happen in the future?

He would deal with it in the future. After all, to worry about this now was unnecessary.

After he bought the house, he planned on installing a security camera system and some drones. Xiao Ai would manage the security for him.

Even with the two trees there, he didn’t believe anyone could climb over.

w.a.n.g Peng made a helpless expression.

“I was just suggesting… Of course, the decision is yours.”

Lu Zhou walked away from the window and looked at the study room. He then said, “I quite like this house… This will do then.”

…

While Lu Zhou was inspecting his future house, Hou Jinli, who also recently joined the Jinling Inst.i.tute for Advanced Study, was also inspecting his future house… Well, the dorm that he would be staying in.

Hou Jinli had just left the University of Science and Technology of China campus. He was now at the Jin Ling University campus, As he looked at the new staff accommodation while carrying his luggage, he felt very emotional.

However, it wasn’t a negative emotion…

It wasn’t positive either…

He thought about the research inst.i.tute’s promise for staff accommodation and couldn’t help but feel a little excited. Houses nearby had an average price of 30,000 yuan per square meter. He could start living there after working for one year and could own the place after working for eight years. These conditions were considered extremely generous among the Chinese research community.

Especially the materials research community.

Of course, what made him more excited was that he would become a staff member of a n.o.bel Prize winner’s laboratory.

He’d be willing to work there even if he wasn’t paid.

Once he wrote a couple of theses, his qualifications would be on another level.

Hou Jinli spent a long time tidying his new place and spent his first night in Jinling sleeping at the Jin Ling University staff faculty dorms.

He finally settled down at his new place.

Tomorrow was the first official working day.

The next day, Hou Jinli took a taxi all the way to the entrance of the Inst.i.tute for Advanced Study. He then went to the Inst.i.tute of Computational Materials.

From the main entrance of the research inst.i.tute to the materials building, he had to go through two security access points. Both points used facial recognition.

The research didn’t give these new hires time to become familiar with the environment. After their orientation yesterday, all of them had basically been a.s.signed specific tasks.

However, he didn’t need time to become familiar with the environment here. Before coming here, he had been doing similar types of work. Coincidentally, it was also research on carbon nanomaterials.

For him, all that changed was the location where he would be conducting the experiment.

The only thing he had to familiarize himself with was where the instruments and reagents were at.

Hou Jinli double-checked his tasks for today before he put on an anti-static white lab coat. He weighed 10 grams of 100 mesh graphite powder and mixed it with sodium nitrate solids at a 2:1 ratio.

Suddenly, Yu Junda walked into the laboratory. He was also in the interns.h.i.+p stage.

“We’re making an SG-1 sample today?”

Hou Jinli nodded and said, “Yeah, there’s not enough stock left. Are you familiar with the Hummers’ method?”

“I’ve done it a few times.”

“Okay then, come and help me.”

Normally, other than preparing it in-house, the chemicals and reagents needed in experiments could be bought from other research inst.i.tutes or companies.

However, the SG-1 material was a new technology that was recently unveiled at the MRS conference. Even though most databases had all the relevant theses and experimental reports, there weren’t many laboratories that had the capability of producing it.

Every step of the graphene oxide preparation was crucial.

According to the Hummers method, which was adopted by Qian Zhongming, the process of adding pota.s.sium permanganate was divided into low, medium, and high-temperature reaction stages.

When adding the pota.s.sium permanganate in parts, the reaction temperature should be around 20 degrees Celsius, and it would require around half an hour of stirring.

After that, the temperature should be raised to 35 degrees Celsius, and it should be stirred for half an hour.

Once the product of the reaction was poured into a certain amount of deionized water, it should then produce a bright yellow solution. This should be placed in a 98 degrees Celsius water bath and heated. It should be stirred for about half an hour. Finally, the solution should go through suction filtration. After that, the researcher would place it to be dried.

If everything went well, the final sample would be in a light reddish-brown color.

If something went wrong, one would have no idea what one just made.

Most of the time, the real marker of a researcher’s experiment abilities were in the small details.

If one didn’t pay attention to these details, one could produce two different results even though one was doing the same experiment using the same procedure.

In other words, if a researcher could pay attention to the small details, even though they wouldn’t necessarily become an excellent researcher, they wouldn’t be a noob researcher anymore.

For Hou Jinli, these procedures weren’t difficult at all.

He spent a year working as a researcher for the University of Science and Technology of China, and he did similar experiments countless times before. When he finished the entire process smoothly, Yu Junda, who stood next to him, was astounded.

Even though he also worked as a researcher for a good university, unfortunately, he was responsible for writing theses…

Hou Jinli completed the graphene oxide preparation but stayed serious.

Next up, he had to follow the experimental report and use techniques such as N-doping, etc. to modify the graphene oxide.

The next steps were the key to determining the success of his experiment.

Unfortunately, even though the experimental report was written clearly, and he was carefully following the steps, things didn’t go as smooth as he had imagined.

The final product that appeared in front of the two researchers was a pile of black powder.

Yu Junda realized the experiment had failed. He had a slightly awkward expression when he asked, “… Is this thing still salvageable?”

Hou Jinli was also feeling awkward as he replied, “Probably not.”

Experiments all had an underlying success rate, so failing once wasn’t a big deal.

However, their efforts had gone to waste…

Hou Jinli sighed and placed the sample into a small plastic bag.

He walked to the waste bin and squeezed the black sample.

He thought this thing would instantly turn to dust when squeezed. However, the irregular powder particles didn’t break.

Hou Jinli noticed this unusual phenomenon and stopped walking. He then looked at the small plastic bag in his hand and frowned.

This thing seems to be… quite strong?