It is true that using drugs will have some effects on the body, but using drugs may be the most convenient and fastest way. Under normal circumstances, it is impossible to keep consciousness awake and put the body to sleep, but with special drugs, such as anesthetics, it can be achieved.
There are many types of anesthetics, such as solid types, gas types, and liquid types. What Richard is trying to prepare now is a solid plant alkaloid anesthetic.
Generally speaking, the preparation of this type of anesthetic is very simple, because many plants contain this ingredient, such as Solanaceae, Leguminosae, Ranunaceae, Papaveraceae, etc. among dicotyledonous plants. Simply add plant raw materials to the instrument, and after a series of chemical reactions to remove impurities, high-purity alkaloids can be obtained.
Richard thought and started to operate.
Complex instruments are constantly functioning, distillation, condensation, filtration, extraction, precipitation, dissolution, crystallization...
"Puff, puff, puff", a large amount of white steam comes out, "plop, plop", the lid of the jar keeps beating, "tick, tick, tick", a drop of yellow liquid drips out of the horn tube, "gurgling, gurgling", a large amount of water comes out of the beaker bubble…
…
After a while, the entire experimental process reached the final stage. As the temperature of the liquid in a beaker gradually dropped, pieces of crystals separated out, showing a muddy yellow color, and the inside seemed to be filled with dust.
Richard just glanced at it and couldn't help but shake his head, knowing that this first attempt failed for a simple reason - there were impurities.
There is nothing wrong with my own experimental process, and the removal of various impurities has been taken into consideration. However, the entire experiment lasts for more than twenty links. Due to the constraints of the current world of manufacturing instruments, every link will produce a small error.
One error or two errors are acceptable, but ten errors or twenty errors are a bit fatal. The accumulation of quantitative changes leads to qualitative changes, completely contaminating the crystallization of the final product that should be pure, making it unusable.
Failed!
Richard shook his head again, but there was no expression of annoyance. Because after coming to this world for fifteen years, I have already understood what kind of world this is. No matter how angry I am, it is useless. No matter how strict the craftsmen are, there will always be errors in the instruments produced.
The only way to solve this problem is to choose... a different path.
"Solid plant alkaloid anesthetics cannot be produced, so we can only see if gaseous anesthetics and liquid anesthetics can be produced." Richard said to himself, and found a blank papyrus scroll from the wooden shelf on one side. , found a place to spread out on the black walnut table, sat upright and started writing and drawing with a quill, and sorting out his thoughts.
"Shashasha..."
Regarding the preparation of gas anesthetics, Richard has one thing in mind, which is to prepare the famous "laughing gas", that is, nitrous oxide (N20).
This is a colorless and sweet gas whose anesthetic effect was discovered by the British chemist Humphrey Davy in 1799 in modern earth history. Later, it was widely used in the field of dentistry, because it allows patients to lose pain while still maintaining consciousness and making oral responses according to the dentist's instructions, which brings great convenience to dentists.
The most important thing is that this gas-based anesthetic has a simple structure and only needs a thermal decomposition reaction to prepare it. To be precise, it is to heat ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3), let the ammonium nitrate decompose into nitrous oxide (N2O) and water (H2O), and use the drainage method to collect the nitrous oxide.
Thinking of this, Richard wrote the three words "ammonium nitrate" in the center of the papyrus scroll. He frowned for a moment, thinking that there should be no such thing as ammonium nitrate in this world.
Because ammonium nitrate is not a natural substance, but a chemical product, industrial production was not achieved until the late 19th century. If you want to use industrial methods to prepare it, you need to use ammonium sulfate and Chilean saltpeter for a metathesis reaction.
"Rust, rustle..." Soon, on the papyrus scroll, the words "ammonium sulfate" and "Chilean saltpeter" appeared next to the "ammonium nitrate" in the middle.
Richard's eyes first fell on ammonium sulfate. Ammonium sulfate is usually obtained by neutralizing ammonium hydroxide and sulfuric acid, crystallizing, centrifuging and drying. Sulfuric acid exists, but ammonia hydroxide does not. It needs to be prepared chemically...
Turning his head, Richard's eyes fell on the Chilean saltpeter again. The main component of Chilean saltpeter is sodium nitrate (NaNO3). Since raw ore is not available, it can only be synthesized with metallic sodium and nitric acid. Nitric acid is easy to talk about, but sodium is hard to find in this world. Table salt contains sodium, but to separate it requires electrolysis, which requires electricity...
"Shashasha..." Richard wrote more and more on the papyrus. When he finally stopped, he had already written a full page. If you follow the operations written on the papyrus scroll, let alone twenty links, even forty links are too few.
The main reason for this situation is the current technological limitations of the world. Because there is no industrialization, many raw materials that should be easily available cannot be obtained. They can only be synthesized with the most basic and common substances. In this way It will inevitably increase the workload and difficulty.
"Huh", exhaled and rubbed his eyebrows, Richard had decided to give up the second attempt for the time being and wait and see how the third attempt goes before making a decision.
The third attempt is to prepare a liquid anesthetic. Richard is more optimistic about ether (C4H10O).
Ether can be regarded as the most well-known anesthetic to ordinary people. Even if you have never seen it in reality, you will often see such a scene in various movies: the bad guy suddenly covers the victim with a handkerchief soaked in liquid. The victim inhaled nervously, sucking the volatile liquid into his body, and then his body went limp and passed out.
In the bridge section, the liquid in the handkerchief is ether, which is a colorless and transparent liquid that is highly volatile and extremely efficient in anesthesia.
But it is not easy to prepare this ether. The industrial preparation method requires the use of alumina as a catalyst. Aluminum oxide, or metallic aluminum, in the current world similar to the Middle Ages, is ten to a hundred times more scarce than gold and gems.
Although the content of aluminum in the earth's crust ranks third after oxygen and silicon, it has not been possible to separate metallic aluminum because the oxidizing properties of aluminum compounds are very weak and cannot be easily reduced from their compounds. It wasn't until 1854 on modern Earth that the German chemist Deville used sodium instead of potassium to reduce aluminum chloride and produced pure aluminum ingots. For a long time after that, because it was extremely difficult to make, aluminum was a treasure that could only be enjoyed by emperors and nobles.
For example, the French Emperor Napoleon III used aluminum forks at banquets; the King of Thailand used aluminum watch chains; they were displayed together with the crown jewels at the Paris Exposition in 1855, with the label stating "Silver from Clay"; in 1889 , the London Chemical Society gave vases and cups made of aluminum alloy as heavy gifts to Telev...
In the current world, if you plan to take out alumina from scratch and use it as a catalyst for experiments, I am afraid it will be more difficult than an unarmed farmer killing a giant dragon, but...
"Is there no other way? Are you stumped on the first so-called reshaping of life..." Richard said to himself, tapping the tabletop lightly.
"Pah, pah, pah... pah!" Suddenly Richard stopped his fingers, thought of something, and his eyes sharpened, "Wait a minute..."