Technology: Breaking the Global Monopoly

Chapter 1988 Starch Manufacturing

When scientist Yu Hongbin saw Gu Qing's location in the control room, his heartbeat calmed down a little.

With so many engineers and scientists applying within the company this time, he actually didn't have too many expectations for himself. After all, as far as he knew, Zhang Tianhao, head of the company's Titanium Star department, Ying Shu, head of Jiuzhou Technology's 6G Communication Engineering department, Li Cun... so many talented people who were extremely loyal to the company, had applied to stay on the moon in accordance with the procedure.

But it was actually me...

"Huh... now that we succeeded, keep working hard!"

Yu Hongbin relied on Jiuzhou scholarships to live and study in college, and has been promoted within the Jiuzhou technology system after work. He has been working hard to move towards his idol.

"I just don't know what the background of this friend who was also selected is. Even his name is codenamed 'X'. The leader of the think tank is indeed unique."

After sighing, Yu Hongbin began to work on the task at hand.

He needs to organize the raw materials needed for each project in the shortest possible time. After counting the supplies, he will begin to explore and transform the environment around the cave. He should complete the preliminary exploration work and expand the lunar base before his colleagues land on the moon next month.

Gu Qing glanced at the picture in the lower right corner of his mask display area, saw that the seed cultivated by his company was working actively, and nodded.

The company cannot rely solely on people like Zhang Tianhao, Yingsu, and Li You to take the lead. In addition to young people, it also needs more new faces to assume responsibilities and authority.

After being distracted for a few seconds, Gu Qing quickly regained his focus and concentrated on the experiment.

Next to the equipment in the physical storage compartment, he clicked on the operating screen, opened a pile of "waste gas" bottles in the warehouse, and transferred the gas inside to another device.

These exhaust gases are the exhaust gases produced by every astronaut from the first moon landing to this moon landing. As precious materials, they were not abandoned, but collected and sorted into warehouses by intelligent robots.

"The amount of carbon dioxide contained in these exhaust gases should be enough to make a meal of steamed buns."

After sighing like this, Gu Qing stretched out his right hand, clicked the conversion button, and then began to wait quietly.

Starch is the most important ingredient in all staple foods in the world, and it is also an extremely important industrial raw material. Today, the main source of starch in Bluestar Global is produced by corn, potatoes and other crops through natural photosynthesis to fix carbon dioxide. Although it looks very natural, you just need to plant seeds, apply fertilizers, control insects, and harvest to get starch-rich staple foods.

However, from a scientific point of view, the synthesis and accumulation of starch in plants involves more than 60 metabolic reactions and complex physiological regulation, and the theoretical energy conversion efficiency is only about 2%.

Moreover, this miraculous change requires a long time, fertile land, water resources, various fertilizers, and various pesticides against pests and diseases. Even hydroponics requires various nutrient solutions and a stable and controllable space to proceed.

The climate change crisis will lead to a food crisis. The most important thing for humans is to eat. Modern agronomy, agricultural machinery, agricultural equipment, and seed cultivation are just factors that humans can control. Although a few years ago, a team at the Daxia Academy of Sciences had achieved the de novo synthesis of starch from carbon dioxide, it was only under laboratory conditions, cost a lot of money, and produced little.

The equipment that Gu Qing is currently operating can achieve a leap-forward improvement in conversion rate and energy saving.

On this device, first, there will be components that capture solar energy through a specific photosynthesis simulation system and convert it into chemical energy to provide energy for subsequent chemical reactions. In addition to solar energy, there is also base self-stored energy as a back-up.

After capturing the set quota of energy, the equipment system will use this energy to fix carbon dioxide in the air and form organic matter.

Then, through a series of enzymatic reactions, the fixed carbon dioxide molecules are gradually converted into longer carbon chains, and at the same time, they are modified by program equipment to eventually generate starch molecules.

By designing and calculating pathways, an artificial starch anabolic pathway consisting of 24 core reactions was constructed, and an artificial starch anabolic pathway was established through module assembly and substitution. In a chemical enzyme system with time and space separation, driven by hydrogen, carbon dioxide was converted into starch at a rate of 60 nanomoles of carbon dioxide per minute. The starch synthesis rate of this artificial pathway is more than ten times that of corn starch, and the speed can be further increased when Gu Qing deliberately "adds ingredients".

When simulating some of the principles of natural photosynthesis, more human intervention is carried out on this basis. The artificial intelligence program and equipment program are combined to make the synthesis more efficient and not restricted by the environment and seasonal weather.

A person releases about 1140g of carbon dioxide through breathing every day. The breathing frequency of Jiuzhou Technology astronauts is slightly lower than that of ordinary people, but the amount of air they breathe is not lower. In fact, because their bodies are more developed and they exercise a lot every day, they exhale more carbon dioxide.

If we calculate based on the average life expectancy of 75 years, a person's breathing in his or her lifetime will produce about 31200 kilograms of carbon dioxide, which can be used to synthesize nearly a thousand kilograms of starch.

Although it cannot satisfy a person's starch needs for seventy-five years, it can meet the survival needs for at least several years. If eaten with other foods, it can extend the time.

Of course, this technology does not require other inputs, such as the raw materials, energy, and equipment losses required for enzymatic reactions, all of which require consumption of energy and materials.

As time passed, Gu Qing seemed to be fascinated. He watched the operation of the equipment motionlessly in the food storage cabin.

Occasionally, an intelligent robot will be ordered to come over to connect the data, manually optimize the program for it, and eliminate some junk data running in the system.

Yu Hongbin was very self-aware and knew that this big boss must have important work to do, so he did not take the initiative to ask this "Mr. X" whether he had completed the work out of curiosity, but instead carried out his own work very seriously.

[Xiezhi] and [Tiangong], the former is responsible for work records, while the latter pays more attention to data changes in the actual process of each task. Only after both of them agree that the work is completed, can Yu Hongbin proceed to complete the next task.

Although it seems cumbersome, it is not him who needs to do the actual work.

Every time Jiuzhou Xinghai Company carries out a lunar landing mission, it will bring "laborers" to the moon.