"Charles L. Harness-The Alchemist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

Two days later the Safety Committee investigated a minor explosion in Silicon Compounds. There was
no damage, beyond a wrecked hot plate, and nobody was hurt. As the Committee noted in their written
report to Andrew Bleeker, the explosion was the expected result of an experiment by Pierre Celsus,
done in the hood behind shatterproof glass, all in approved and careful fashion. One gram of fulminate
had been heated on the hot plate to 145┬░C., then detonated-- by touching it with a feathertip.
Explosions, controlled or otherwise, made Bleeker uneasy. He called Bond on the phone. "What
fulminate was it?" he demanded.
"I don't know," said Bond candidly.
"Find out," said Bleeker.
The group leader called back in a few minutes. "It was gold fulminate." He sounded uncertain. "It's not
a true fulminate, not a salt of fulminic acid. It's made by reacting auric oxide, water, and ammonia. When
dry, it's highly unstable... detonates by light friction."
"Why was Celsus working with it? How does it relate to anything in the silamine program?"
Bond coughed. "I asked Celsus about that-- "
"And?"
"It has something to do with a new silamine catalyst." Bond sounded defensive.
Bleeker started. "Good heavens! Gold fulminate... a catalyst?"
"I don't think so. But I'm not really sure. As Celsus explained it, the real catalyst won't be gold, but
rather one of the rare earth oxides. Terbium, I think. I know this sounds rather strange, Andy. It's
probably my fault for not understanding Celsus." Bond's voice trailed away unhappily. "Sometimes, it's
difficult to communicate with him."
Bleeker paused. Finally he said, "Let me know if you find out anything further."
After he replaced the phone, Bleeker began swinging his chair in slow oscillations, eyes narrowed and
brows knotted. "nobody," he thought grimly, "ever tells me anything." He swung around toward the
window. "And why? Because nobody in this lab ever tells anybody anything. And it's getting worse every
day. No organization. Maybe Sasanov was right." He swung back around and stared through his open
office door. As he peered, he caught a serio-comic vision of the lights going out, one by one, all over the
lab. He suppressed a shiver.
***


From test tube to commercial plant at Hope Chemicals classically proceeded through four
well-defined steps. Step one was "in glass"-- generally with a glass one-liter reaction vessel with a train of
glass accessories, all stock equipment, with parts out of the cupboard. Celsus' first silamine run had been
"in glass." Step two was the "bench unit." Nearly all parts were metal, and many were specially designed
or ordered out of the special chemical apparatus catalogs. The bench unit was supposed to "prove out"
and "optimize" the glass setup. The pilot plant was next. From its operation the engineers were able to
draw up thermodynamic data and could analyze feed, recycle, purification, and effluent streams, all of
which were absolutely essential in designing a commercial plant, which was the fourth and final step. Each
of these steps was vital and none could safely be omitted. They were links in a chain. If one failed, the
whole sequence of events came to an abrupt halt, never to be revived. Although each phase was
essential, everyone at the lab, from Bleeker on down, knew very well that one certain phase was more
essential than the others. For sad history had shown that if a project were going to die, it nearly always
picked the bench unit for its coffin.
In his Monthly Project Report on his work "in glass," the less experienced chemist might report loftily
that, although yields in glass were perhaps a little low, they could be expected to improve with the
adequate temperature control available in a bench unit; or that by-product contamination would not be a
problem in a bench unit, where a purge would operate continuously. And then the bench unit would be
built, and he would have to eat his predictions on a stainless steel platter. So chemists at Hope were
generally quite chary of predicting the performance of a projected bench unit. At best, they would answer