Start as a top student and move towards the stars and the sea

Tong Chen always felt that although Ning Chen was younger than him in age and grade, he was more like his senior brother.

In addition to his excellent scientific research ability, Ning Chen also appears to be much more mature than himself when dealing with various problems and communicating with others.

Perhaps it is these reasons that can create such Ning Chen.

…

After a period of experimentation, everyone gradually adapted to their new positioning, and the cooperation between the members became more tacit.

Under the synergistic effect of various improvement plans, the entire mineral leaching microbial system has better oxidative activity and catalytic performance. Compared with the previous improvement in a single direction, there has been a significant improvement.

During this period, Ning Chen contributed many excellent results in the physical improvement of ore-leaching microorganisms.

Due to his previous internship experience in Ren Mingshan's laboratory, Ning Chen's physics level has made a huge leap, which also allowed Ning Chen to come up with many valuable ideas.

That evening, after the day's experiments, Gao Hongliang and Ning Chen left the laboratory together.

On the way, the two chatted about the experimental subject.

"Ning Chen, the idea you proposed before using alternating ultraviolet and microwave irradiation to promote microbial mutagenesis is really a very constructive idea." Gao Hongliang said.

Ning Chen's experimental idea not only ensures the normal growth and reproduction of microorganisms, but also greatly speeds up the mutation rate of microorganisms.

Among them, the oxidizing ability of the positively improved microorganisms has increased by about 40% compared to before, and the ability to decompose minerals has been greatly enhanced.

However, Ning Chen is not very satisfied with this progress, because there is still a certain gap between Ning Chen's inner expectations.

Thinking of this, Ning Chen asked tentatively:

"Teacher Gao, I would like to ask, is the current progress of the project still in line with your expectations?"

Hearing Ning Chen's question, Gao Hongliang was stunned for a moment, and then said:

"Everyone's performance has been very good recently, and the progress of the project has been moving in the right direction. Of course, if you ask whether it was my expectation, it is definitely still a little bit behind the best psychological expectations."

Gao Hongliang expressed his thoughts tactfully. Of course, even if Gao Hongliang didn't say it, Ning Chen could guess that Gao Hongliang must have higher psychological expectations.

After all, Gao Hongliang deliberately brought together students with different research directions in the experimental group, and he must have wanted to produce the most ideal research results.

Gao Hongliang's ultimate goal is to publish a truly top-notch article.

Although Ning Chen's desire to publish papers is not as strong as before after experiencing the project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, publishing papers is also a very normal pursuit of every scientific researcher.

Since Ning Chen chose to participate in the research of this experimental subject, he must have hoped to do his best to make the subject the best it can be.

At this time, Ning Chen secretly made up his mind to strive to make this subject meet the psychological expectations of himself and Gao Hongliang before leaving Yanda, and it was not in vain that Gao Hongliang could give Ning Chen the opportunity to enter the laboratory for internship.

Of course, Ning Chen did not say these words in front of Gao Hongliang, but only regarded it as an encouragement to himself.

After separating from Gao Hongliang, Ning Chen walked to the playground and saw Song Xiyun waiting at the entrance of the playground.

"Ning Chen, you are finally here."

Because he had to do experiments every night, Ning Chen often postponed the time he came to the playground to participate in the night run. Sometimes he even put off the night run and spent his time doing experiments.

In fact, Ning Chen looked forward to the night running activities with Song Xiyun every day, but sometimes the experiment was at a critical stage, which forced Ning Chen to make a difficult choice.

"Sorry, after I came out of the laboratory just now, I talked with the teacher about some experimental matters."

This made Ning Chen not choose the shortest route to the operation just now, so he arrived at the playground a little late.

Song Xiyun was not really angry because of this. For Ning Chen, a scientific research madman, it was already very difficult to be able to regularly spare some time for exercise.

"Okay, don't hang around here, let's get started quickly."

The weather is still a bit cold at night now. When Song Xiyun was waiting for Ning Chen, she was already rubbing her hands.

"Okay, let's get started."

The two came to the playground track and started running side by side.

More than twenty minutes later, Ning Chen and Song Xiyun completed the 5,000-meter run together and walked around the playground.

At this time, Ning Chen was still thinking about the experiment. Song Xiyun was talking alone, and Ning Chen only occasionally responded with a few perfunctory words.

Under normal circumstances, girls would have been angry when encountering this kind of situation, but Song Xiyun could see that Ning Chen was thinking about something, so she didn't care about Ning Chen, and just quietly walked side by side with Ning Chen on the playground. walking.

At this moment, Ning Chen suddenly stopped.

Song Xiyun looked back at Ning Chen and found that Ning Chen's expression had changed very obviously.

This was an expression of sudden enlightenment, and even Ning Chen's eyes seemed to be shining with light.

Ning Chen noticed his gaffe and quickly said to Song Xiyun:

"Sorry, I've just been thinking about the experiment."

"Hey, I can see it all. Judging from the way you looked just now, you must have suddenly thought of some good idea, right?"

"Hey, Song Xiyun, you still understand me." Ning Chen said with a smile.

What Song Xiyun said was indeed true. Just when he was walking on the playground, Ning Chen suddenly thought of a new idea.

This new idea is likely to make the entire mineral leaching microbial system have far more powerful mineral processing capabilities than before.

"Okay, go back and perfect your idea. It's time for me to go back to the dormitory."

Song Xiyun knew that at this time, Ning Chen wanted to run back to the laboratory to prepare experiments, and his thoughts would definitely not be on herself.

"Well... OK, let's see you tomorrow."

After the two separated, Ning Chen trotted towards his dormitory.

Looking at Ning Chen's back, Song Xiyun couldn't help but laugh.

Back in the dormitory, Ning Chen didn't bother to take a shower. He turned on the computer and took out the scratch paper to sort out and improve the ideas he just had.

When Ning Chen was walking on the playground with Song Xiyun just now, the idea that Ning Chen thought of was the technology of "joint leaching of multiple bacterial genera".

Simply put, the idea is to use the joint action of multiple microorganisms to achieve a more efficient biometallurgical process.

In fact, it is not that no one has thought of this idea before, but in actual operation, we faced some unsolvable problems, and in the end this idea was completely rejected.

One of the main problems is that various bacterial species have different living environments, making it difficult to coexist in the same system.

Each strain of bacteria has its own most suitable temperature conditions. Beyond this specific temperature range, activity will decrease, reproduction will stop, and even mass death will occur.

It is these various conditions that make it difficult to realize the idea of ​​multiple microorganisms working together, because no two microorganisms suitable for mineral leaching have nearly the same active conditions.

Ning Chen naturally did not find such two microorganisms, but tried to solve this problem through another method.

I saw Ning Chen drawing a model of a container in the computer modeling software after completing a lot of calculations on the scratch paper.

To be more precise, this is a mineral leaching bioreactor composed of multiple vessels connected together.

In each container, a mineral leaching microorganism will be placed, and the temperature environment in the container will be maintained to be an environment suitable for this microorganism.

And in the connection between adjacent containers, there is an "ecological transition zone".

This "ecological transition zone" can achieve temperature transition and regulation, and also allows mineral solutions to circulate among different containers.

In addition, filters of appropriate size will be installed at both ends of these channels.

Because the size of microorganisms is much larger than the size of mineral ions, each type of microbial strain can be kept in the same container.

The biggest advantage of this kind of mineral leaching bioreactor is that it allows different microbial strains to cooperate. It is no longer necessary to perform each mineral leaching step in separate steps as before, which greatly improves the efficiency of mineral leaching.