“That’s right, exactly the alcohol, you may also call it glycerol.” Roland stated, “It is a very valuable raw material, whose importance is not inferior to the two acids.”
“Okay,” Kyle shrugged and said, “However, as I already have stated it, I don’t have the time to do it myself.”
Roland exhaled slightly; once more starting to learn how tiring it was to deal with the chief alchemist, “As long as you pick out several talented apprentices and demonstrate the process one time in front of them, it will already be enough. I will recruit some of my subjects to carry out the production process, however, in the end, none of them even understands a word about chemistry, so there have to be some people to check on every segment.
After pausing for a moment, the Prince continued to say, “You can also treat it as a never before practiced chemical test — if placed in the alchemic workshop, this process may mean the discovery of some new alchemic formulas, enough to earn an apprentice the title of an alchemist.”
Those lasts few words were probably what persuaded Kyle in the end, “If you say it like this, I’ll need an entire afternoon to teach the apprentice what they require.”
“Excellent,” Roland smiled. “You should also know that the most important thing about the process is ensuring that enough caustic soda is produced.” He wrote down the reaction formula on a piece of paper.
Before the invention of the syntactic alkali production, natural soda was the most important alkali raw material. The latter was mainly composed of sodium bicarbonate, which when heated would break down into sodium carbonate, carbon dioxide, and water. Because it was accessible in great amount and also quite simple to process, it was still in use even in modern times. “By decomposing the washing stones with heat, followed by dissolving them in water and afterward filtering the water, you can obtain a relatively pure solution of sodium carbonate solution.
“Followed by heating it together with milk of lime, you can get a sodium hydroxide solution, for which you should easily be able to come up with a purifying method for yourself,” Roland explained. ” To clarify, first distil, then mix, repeating these steps until the concentration is high enough. Then after it has cooled down, the concentrated solution will have formed a huge amount of crystals.”
These were the details written in the “Elementary Chemistry”. Since those two alkalis had several nicknames (such as caustic soda, lye, soda ash, sodium hyposulfite, sodium thiosulfate, soda crystals, etc.), it was incredibly easy to get them mixed up; which made it an important subject of a knowledge test. The reason why he could still clearly remember it to this day was because he was initially required to know the textbook’s related content by heart.
“I understand,” the chief alchemist said, looking over the equation of the chemical reaction from start to finish. “But Your Highness, what’s to be done in regards with the fat?”
“I will arrange people who will send it to you.” Animal fat was an expensive resource during this era, however, during the previous seed collecting mission, his personal guard had brought back the seeds for olive trees from Fallen Dragon Ridge, which now gave Border Town a reliable source for vegetable oil. Even though there was currently only a small plantation at the castle backyard, but since Leaves had the ability to hasten ripening, harvesting a pile of fruits each day was no problem at all.
The extraction of olive oil was also very simple. When the fruit became ripe, they simply used physical strength to squeeze the oil out and afterward sieved it so as to filter out the flesh and seeds.
Finally, after a brief description of the requirements and necessary preparation for the soap and glycerol production, Roland permitted Kyle Sichi to leave the office.
From now on, when the soap factory started its production, Roland would obtain a steady stream of glycerol.
And with glycerin, he had finally made a big step towards getting real smoke-free gunpowder and powerful explosives.
Kyle Sichi passed through Border Town into the direction of the Redwater River.
By now, Border Town had become a flourishing place; it was hard to imagine that this place had started out as nothing more than an outpost used to detect the movements of the demonic beasts. The ground beneath his feet was grayish black and solid. Both sides of the street were lined with neatly arranged single-story houses, different to the residential building in the other district. These houses weren’t used for a living; their interior was much more spacious than the other residences, and were somewhat similar to a small warehouse.
According to His Highness, these houses would be used as stores.
