Chapter 872
Intelligent Platform, A Small Shock
The thorium-based molten salt reactor route has two major challenges, which can be discerned from its name.
One is thorium, and the other is molten salt.
The main isotope of thorium is thorium-232. Unlike uranium-235, which we are already familiar with, it cannot continuously obtain energy through a chain fission reaction. Instead, it undergoes alpha decay and beta decay, with the main transmutation products being radium-228, radon-220, etc., and finally stabilizes in lead-208.
To generate electricity using thorium-232, a feasible approach is to implement the thorium-uranium cycle. First, a small amount of uranium is used as a neutron source. After thorium-232 absorbs neutrons, it becomes thorium-233. After two decays, uranium-233 is obtained. This is a relatively rare isotope in nature, but like uranium-235, it can undergo fission and release neutrons.
These neutrons can further transform thorium-232 into uranium-233, and also stimulate uranium-233 to undergo further fission reactions. In addition, the product of the first decay of thorium-233 is protactinium-233, which absorbs neutrons, preventing the reaction from proceeding smoothly, but its half-life is relatively short.
A quick review reveals that using thorium to generate electricity presents far more technical challenges than using uranium directly. Just figuring out how many neutrons from uranium-233 can be captured by thorium-232 and continuously converted into uranium-233 is not easy to understand both theoretically and practically.
However, thorium also has many advantages. Its safety is higher than that of uranium-235 and plutonium-239. Therefore, the United States of America began researching it in the 50s.
Research on thorium in China also began very early. In March 1965, the Second Ministry of Machine Building convened a conference on "Utilization of Thorium," bringing together numerous institutions, including the Technical Department of the Ministry of Metallurgical Industry, Tsinghua University, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Institute 401 (the predecessor of the Institute of Atomic Energy), Institute 194 (the Institute of Nuclear Power), and Institute 230 (the predecessor of the Institute of Applied Physics, which was also the main responsible unit for this thorium-based molten salt reactor), to study how to develop a thorium fuel reactor.
At this time, the publicly available parameters were very limited, so scientific research had to rely on its own efforts, starting with the most basic things, such as purifying thorium and collecting uranium-233 obtained by irradiating thorium-232 with neutrons.
By 1970, the work was largely successful, but due to the need for secrecy, the uranium-233 samples that were originally planned to be displayed were not made public.
At the same time, there was a lot of work being done. For example, Institute 230 was still studying the reprocessing of thorium-based fuels. So many radioactive materials needed to be separated through adsorption, precipitation, and filtration.
Besides the thorium issue, there are also many problems with molten salt.
Choosing to use molten salt eliminates the need for water as a coolant, making nuclear power plants much more flexible in terms of environmental impact, as molten salt reactors can operate at atmospheric pressure.
But where there are advantages, there are also disadvantages.
Molten salts are usually made of fluoride salts, which are extremely corrosive and severely damage metals, especially nickel alloys.
It can be said that as long as the problem of molten salt corrosion is solved, it means that thorium-based molten salt reactors have achieved a major breakthrough, and the next step can be to officially implement them.
Therefore, Wang Donglai's provision of a solution capable of operating for 30,000 hours on his very first day was a huge shock to everyone.
However, this was nothing to Wang Donglai.
Since he took the initiative to propose ideas for cutting-edge technologies such as thorium-based molten salt reactors and brain-computer interfaces, he must have already thought them through.
If a breakthrough is achieved in thorium-based molten salt reactors, it will drastically change the world order.
the next day.
If Wang Donglai hadn't insisted, many professors and scholars at the research and development center probably wouldn't have been willing to come.
After all, the things Wang Donglai took out yesterday were of great value to them.
They need time to verify, time to digest and absorb, and time to make it their own.
However, faced with Wang Donglai's almost forced request to attend the meeting, they thought about it and still went ahead with it.
What if Wang Donglai comes up with some advanced technology again?
With that in mind, the group went to the conference room.
From the very beginning, Wang Donglai threw out a trump card.
"Galaxy Technology has a 'high-throughput multi-scale materials R&D intelligent platform' that integrates first-principles calculations, molecular dynamics simulations, phase diagram thermodynamics databases, and a specially trained generative AI model."
As Wang Donglai spoke, he opened the internal platform.
Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, multiple objectives were set, including "resistant to high temperatures of 700-800 degrees Celsius", "resistant to fluoride salt corrosion", "resistant to tellurium penetration", "good mechanical properties" and "controllable cost". To the crowd, these objectives seemed to conflict with each other.
They are the type who want everything, and when it comes to scientific research, they will curse if such demands are ever made.
However, Wang Donglai put them all together at this moment.
Seeing the puzzled looks on everyone's faces, Wang Donglai explained simply: "The traditional trial and error method can only test one formula at a time, but there are too many variables in the material formula, almost a huge number, so the research and development is extremely difficult."
"However, with the development of technology, this problem has been well solved."
"Using artificial intelligence technology, we can attempt atomic-level element replacement, lattice distortion, and interface design in virtual space at a rate of millions of times per second."
"It is not bound by human experience and can create 'strange' recipes that we cannot imagine."
"It will provide the virtual structures of the top 1000 candidate materials with the highest probability and predict their performance. We only need to select the most feasible ones from them for actual synthesis and verification."
"The development of artificial intelligence technology and the breakthrough of quantum computing technology, combined with these technologies, have created extremely strong scientific research capabilities."
Upon hearing Wang Donglai's explanation, the eyes of everyone present immediately lit up.
Chen Mingyuan asked with a hint of realization, "Academician Wang, are the Evergreen Liquid and other products developed by your company derived from this?"
"I had long heard that your company had a deep technical foundation in biotechnology and artificial intelligence, but I did not expect that your company's technical foundation had reached this level."
Wang Donglai nodded and said, "Technology changes the world. In fact, many technologies that seem high-end and mysterious are just things that haven't been mastered yet."
"And coincidentally, I have a little talent for this!"
Everyone was speechless upon hearing Wang Donglai's words.
If Wang Donglai is considered to have only a little talent, then what about them?
Was he useless? Or mentally challenged?
Just as everyone was speechless, Wang Donglai spoke up.
"We will open this intelligent platform to the public. If Academician Chen is interested, he can contact the higher authorities and pay attention to this matter."
As soon as Wang Donglai said those words, Chen Mingyuan's eyes lit up.
He was already mentally organizing his thoughts on how to say those words.
After witnessing the powerful capabilities of this intelligent platform, he got the idea.
However, he also understood that this intelligent platform was too powerful.
Wang Donglai, or rather Galaxy Technology, may not be willing to hand it over; he is still trying to figure out how to persuade Wang Donglai to do so.
But unexpectedly, Wang Donglai brought it up on his own initiative.
"Academician Wang, is this true!?" "This intelligent platform is so useful, I will definitely pay attention to it."
"I believe that with this intelligent platform, the research and development of related technologies will definitely see a significant improvement!"
Chen Mingyuan appeared somewhat excited and thrilled.
If you increase the number of hours from thousands to tens of thousands, then there is a high probability that you can increase it to hundreds of thousands.
Even if the research and development speed is not as good as they hoped, it is still faster than their current research and development speed!
Thinking this way, Chen Mingyuan could almost see the day when the thorium-based molten salt reactor would be successfully launched.
With such a pleasant surprise, everyone was even more excited for the upcoming meeting.
“I’ve looked at your research and development approach, and there’s still room for improvement in online separation and high-efficiency power generation.”
"I have a solution here based on supercritical fluid extraction coupled with photoionization mass spectrometry. We can discuss it together."
"We don't use 'grabbing,' we use 'induced extraction'!"
“A mild temperature-pressure-electric gradient field is created at a specific location in the molten salt circuit, allowing target elements (such as Pa-233, U-233, and certain fission products) to spontaneously and selectively ‘separate’ from the molten salt matrix in this field, forming micro-nano particles or enriched thin layers, which are then collected using microfluidic technology with extremely low energy consumption.”
"..."
"Why do we always think of using the heat of molten salt to boil water and drive steam turbines? The efficiency is stuck at around 40% and can't go any higher. Can't we directly utilize the kinetic energy of high-energy charged particles (such as alpha particles and fission fragments) produced by fission reactions?"
"By introducing a tiny plasma chamber and electrostatic field collection structure at a specific location in the reactor core, some fission fragments can directly penetrate the thin wall and enter the chamber, converting their kinetic energy directly into electrical energy. Theoretically, the single-stage efficiency could exceed 60%, and there are no rotating parts, making the structure more compact."
"Of course, this involves materials for extreme conditions, plasma physics, and high-voltage electrical technology, and is a long-term vision."
"But in the short term, we can first optimize the supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle, and combine it with the core network configuration I proposed on the first day to achieve cogeneration and intelligent load tracking, thereby increasing the overall energy utilization efficiency under the existing technology to more than 50%."
"..."
Although it was supposed to be a discussion among everyone, when Wang Donglai actually said it out loud...
Everyone present was left with only one action.
That is to listen quietly, and then write down the theories and ideas that Wang Donglai talked about.
If you understand something, there's no time to think about it; if you don't understand something, you should hurry up and write it down.
In just two days, Wang Donglai has already achieved so much and won them over.
To question Wang Donglai further would only make them look ridiculous.
At the very least, they can't even grasp the technical theories Wang Donglai is talking about, so how can they question them?
After Wang Dong finished speaking, everyone breathed a long sigh of relief, their hearts finally at ease.
Although Wang Donglai did not ask any questions or make things difficult for them.
However, as members who are able to participate in such major scientific research projects, they still have a sense of pride.
As a result, they were completely outmatched by Wang Donglai, a scholar who was not in their field of expertise.
You can imagine how complex their inner emotions must have been.
In this situation, if Wang Donglai were to ask him questions again, or if Wang Donglai were to see that he didn't understand, then he would truly lose all face.
"That concludes my presentation. Does anyone have any thoughts or opinions?"
After Wang Donglai finished explaining his plan in one breath, he glanced at everyone's faces and asked softly.
Upon hearing Wang Donglai's question, everyone fell silent.
After a while, Chen Mingyuan spoke up and said, "Academician Wang, we may need to discuss the plan you proposed. In your words, we should brainstorm."
"How about this, if we have any opinions, we'll collect them and send them to Academician Wang together later, what do you think?"
Without realizing it, Chen Mingyuan started using respectful terms when addressing Wang Donglai.
Although both are academicians, Chen Mingyuan is almost four cycles older than Wang Donglai, so there's no need to use an honorific title for him.
However, at this moment, Chen Mingyuan still subconsciously used the formal "you" (您).
"Okay, if anyone has any different ideas, feel free to tell me."
Wang Donglai naturally had no objections, and he understood how difficult it was for them to come up with the things he had presented.
If we do as we say, there will soon be a breakthrough in thorium-based molten salt reactors.
However, it could take them a long time to fully understand their own technical theories.
Soon, Wang Donglai left the conference room.
The experts, however, did not leave but remained in the small conference room.
It's not just that they need to discuss technology, but also that they need to vent their shock and other emotions.
"It's unbelievable. If Academician Wang had specialized in nuclear physics, I wouldn't be so shocked, but as far as I know, Academician Wang didn't take any related courses in university."
"That intelligent platform is truly remarkable; it's revolutionary. If it were to be applied on a large scale, I think it would bring about a huge breakthrough in many disciplines and fields!"
"Did you notice how fluently he derived the formulas? He switched between fluid mechanics, neutron transport, control theory, and statistical physics with ease and fluency. That wasn't rote memorization; it was 'physical intuition' and 'mathematical beauty' that had been completely internalized into his instincts. He truly deserves to be called a world-class mathematician!"
"In my opinion, describing Academician Wang as a mathematician is somewhat inadequate. He is more like a top-notch applied scientist and systems architect, and more like a clone of Qian Xuesen!"
As everyone shared their feelings of shock and emotion, the meeting room fell silent once again.
This silence was filled with a burning passion and deep respect.
This is not only a testament to the pinnacle of human intelligence, but also a profound and awe-inspiring testament to the advancements in human technological civilization! (End of Chapter)