Starting from a top student and marching towards the sea of ​​stars

Chapter 128 The tacit understanding between geniuses

After carefully checking various experimental data about this material, Ning Chen also found some problems.

"Teacher Xu, it shouldn't be easy to synthesize this kind of material."

"Yes, you hit the point right away. We spent a lot of effort to synthesize a little bit of this new fiber material. Compared with the previous porous silicon nanomaterials, this fiber material The difficulty of synthesis has to be increased too much.”

Even these days, the fiber materials synthesized by experiments are not enough to be used on a standard lithium battery negative electrode, and they are only of experimental measurement significance.

For successful application, it is necessary to find a more efficient synthesis method of this fiber material, so that it can have higher application value.

Ning Chen silently kept this problem in mind, and while doing experiments, he tried to think of a solution to this problem.

After the mental index increased significantly, Ning Chen gradually mastered some dual-purpose abilities.

This is like the multi-threading function of a computer, which can handle multiple tasks at the same time without affecting each other.

Under Ning Chen's constant thinking, Ning Chen thought of a way to try.

During the lunch break, Ning Chen asked Xu Zhou while eating his meal:

"Teacher Xu, do you think there is a material that has a two-dimensional hexagonal through-hole structure with a space group size of about 6mm?"

Hearing Ning Chen's question, Xu Zhou was stunned for a moment, then asked:
"Ning Chen, why do you ask this?"

"While doing experiments in the morning, I suddenly came up with the idea of ​​using a material similar to a template to prepare this silicon-carbon fiber material in batches."

After hearing Ning Chen's explanation, Xu Zhou immediately stopped eating.

"Ning Chen, you can really give this idea a try! It is really possible for us to prepare the material you mentioned!"

In the field of nanomaterials, Xu Zhou has more experience than Ning Chen.

"Teacher Xu, what kind of material are you referring to?"

"I can't explain a few words clearly. Let's eat quickly, and we'll talk about it in detail when we get back after eating."

Ning Chen and Xu Zhou both speeded up their eating. After finishing their meals, they returned to the laboratory.

Xu Zhou took out paper and pen and drew some patterns on the paper.

"Ning Chen, what you just said is similar to the two-dimensional hexagonal through-hole structure, are you referring to this kind?"

After seeing clearly the pattern drawn on Xuzhou's paper, Ning Chen nodded and said:
"Yes, it has such a structure. Teacher Xu, can we really prepare materials with this structure?"

The pattern drawn by Xu Zhou was almost exactly the same as what Ning Chen had imagined in his mind before. Two people with strong professional abilities would have such a strong tacit understanding when they communicate together.

"At least structurally speaking, it can be completely prepared. It's just that the size of the space group you mentioned, I don't know if it can be accurately achieved."

"Well, it is indeed difficult to determine this accurately at first. Then Teacher Xu, let's study the specific ideas and plans?"

Now that there has been a new turn in the entire project, both Xu Zhou and Ning Chen hope to re-plan future experiments.

At this time, Sui Feng came over and asked:
"Teacher Xu, will the afternoon experiment start now?"

"Don't rush to do the experiment yet. Sui Feng, go and do your work first. I'll call you later if something happens."

Sui Feng was happy to have some leisure time. Anyway, he had just published a paper before and there was no pressure after graduating with a master's degree.

After Sui Feng left, Xu Zhou and Ning Chen continued to discuss issues related to this two-dimensional hexagonal through-hole structure material.

In materials science, this material belongs to the category of mesoporous molecular sieve materials, and there are many synthesis methods and types.

Xu Zhou found several mesoporous molecular sieve materials that he thought were most in line with Ning Chen's ideals. After hearing this, Ning Chen felt that these materials might indeed meet his requirements.

After some discussion, the two quickly reached an agreement on the subsequent experimental plan.

"Then let's stop the experiment at hand and try to synthesize this kind of mesoporous molecular sieve material."

So far, the progress of this project is not slow, and a better anode material has been developed.

At this time, there is really no need for the experimental team to rush to study other anode materials. It is a better choice to prioritize the batch processing of this anode material.After confirming the next experimental plan, Xu Zhou called Sui Feng over and explained the subsequent experimental arrangements to Sui Feng.

"Teacher Xu, are we going to change the experimental plan again?"

Sui Feng was a little surprised by Xu Zhouxin's arrangement. He was obviously studying negative electrode materials for lithium batteries before, so why did he suddenly want to study mesoporous molecular sieve materials?

"Well, now we need to find a mesoporous molecular sieve material of suitable size and try to use this material as a template to mass produce fiber-type silicon-carbon composite materials..."

Listening to Xu Zhou's explanation, Sui Feng roughly understood what Xu Zhou meant.

"Okay, Teacher Xu, I understand."

Sui Feng didn't particularly care about Xu Zhou's thoughts, because Sui Feng positioned himself as a hard-working graduate student who helped the teacher. He could do whatever the teacher asked him to do.

Sui Feng would be grateful if he could get a little more bonus for himself after the project is completed.

……

In the following time, the experimental group focused on the synthesis of various mesoporous molecular sieve materials.

It is not difficult to simply synthesize a mesoporous molecular sieve material. What is difficult is to find a mesoporous molecular sieve material of suitable size.

Xu Zhou, Ning Chen, Sui Feng and others synthesized dozens of different mesoporous molecular sieve materials after many experiments.

To their delight, among the dozens of mesoporous molecular sieve materials, they found a mesoporous molecular sieve material that met their requirements.

After detailed testing, this material is indeed very similar to the material Ning Chen imagined before.

"This mesoporous molecular sieve material has a two-dimensional hexagonal through-hole structure with a space group of about 6 mm. According to the XRD diffraction pattern, the main peak of this material is around 1°..."

Looking at the various properties of this material, Xu Zhou and Ning Chen felt very satisfied.

"The next thing we have to do is to process this material into a template, and then prepare to process silicon-carbon composite materials in batches."

The experiment has progressed to this stage and has entered a field that Xuzhou is very good at.

In just one week, the experimental team successfully processed this mesoporous molecular sieve material into a mesoporous material template.

Through impregnation, etching, heat treatment and other steps, the experimental team successfully prepared silicon-carbon composite fibers with regular mesoporous channels, and the processing efficiency has been improved by more than one level compared to before.

This increase in processing speed is like using printing to replace handwriting, making batch processing of silicon-carbon composite fiber materials possible.

Now that the experiment has entered this stage, Ning Chen can safely prepare for his new project.

Of course, Xuzhou is not satisfied with this, because it is still unknown whether this one-dimensional nanofiber material can actually be applied.

Compared with one-dimensional nanofiber materials, Xuzhou has higher expectations for three-dimensional nanofiber materials.

Three-dimensional nanofiber materials have stronger physical properties and can better suppress volume changes and pulverization of materials.

Under the same number of cycles, the battery life of a lithium battery using three-dimensional nanofiber material as the negative electrode material is likely to show almost no degradation.

"Ning Chen, research on three-dimensional nanofiber materials may last for a longer period, so you should feel free to work on your own projects first."

"Okay, Teacher Xu, I will coordinate my time well and try to be able to take care of both projects."

Xu Zhou's attitude towards Ning Chen and Sui Feng must be completely different. In this horizontal topic, Xu Zhou only hopes that Ning Chen can solve some key problems and does not need to spend time on too many basic tasks. .

Those basic tasks can be completed by any graduate student in materials science, but Ning Chen's role cannot be replaced by others.

Before officially starting a new research topic, Ning Chen first determined his first work.

"For the FeSe single-layer film, I need to conduct more detailed property tests. Because the FeSe film is the core part of the entire superconducting system."

After determining this core work, Ning Chen began to study the synthesis method of FeSe monolayer films.

During this period, the three papers Ning Chen submitted to Nature have also made new progress.

(End of this chapter)