From 1930, he wants to establish a sulfuric acid industry in China. He reported to the Nanjing Ministry of Industry that he hoped that the financial allocation would be 20 million, 6 million to run an alkali plant, 8 million to run a nitric acid plant and 6 million to run a sulfuric acid plant. However, the official reply documents were all empty talk, and none of them were implemented, which completely failed his hopes. In the next three years, he traveled between banks and tried his best to raise funds to promote the project. Finally, it was approved to build a factory in Nanjing at 1933, with an annual design output of 50,000 tons of ammonium sulfate. On February 5th, 1937, Nanjing factory was officially put into operation, and the first batch of domestic ammonium sulfate was produced. Ammonium sulfate can produce nitric acid and make explosives. At that time, the state affairs were tense, and the news was released, which made the people feel refreshed.
193065438+In February, when the Nanjing National Government merged the two departments of industry and commerce, agriculture and mining into the Ministry of Industry, it formulated the so-called ten industrial plans, one of which was to set up a sulfuric acid (i.e. ammonium sulfate) plant, and in193/kloc-0, China Nitrogen Company was established to take charge of the preparation. It is reported that the British Bremen Company and the German Aiqiyan Material Industry Company expressed their willingness to cooperate with China to build an ammonium sulfate plant. But in the discussion, they first said that there was no need to set up a factory in China; Then, it is put forward that if "cooperative factories are established", China government should not open new ammonium sulfate factories with other companies in Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Sichuan within 12 years. We also insist that China Nitrogen Fertilizer Company's ammonium sulfate products are jointly underwritten by British and German companies. The negotiations broke down because of harsh conditions.
What Fan Xudong saw and heard about the negotiation strengthened his determination to run the China ammonium sulfate plant alone, and said that he must make this industry a success. With the support of Shanghai Commercial Savings Bank, Zhejiang Industrial Bank, Jincheng Bank, China Bank, Central South Bank and Bank of Communications, and with the funds accumulated by Yongli Alkali Industry Company, it was filed with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on June 22nd, and 1933+065438+ set up its own ammonium sulfate plant. On February 8, 65438, with the approval of the then Executive Yuan meeting,1March, 934, Wynn Alkali Industry Company was renamed as "Wynn Chemical Industry Company". The newly established factory is named Nanjing Ishikawa Factory (hereinafter referred to as Yonglining Factory), with an annual designed production capacity of 50,000 tons of ammonium sulfate.
In order to investigate the site, Fan Xudong personally led a team to visit Xiangtan, Zhuzhou, Maanshan and Shanghai, and finally chose Xiejiadian, Liuhe County, Jiangsu Province, located on the north bank of Nanjing Yangtze River. 1July, 934, Yonglining Factory began to level the land, build roads, build docks and factories here. In view of the experience and lessons of building soda plants in the past, Hou decided that Fan was in charge of the overall situation in China, and Hou was in charge of selecting technology, ordering equipment and organizing design in the United States. At the same time, a group of technical backbones will be sent to the United States with Hou to deal with engineering and technical matters and practice in similar factories. All foreign contracts were signed by Li Guoqin, the representative of new york Huachang Company. In order to save investment, we don't introduce complete sets of equipment, but only choose key single machines, such as gas stoves and synthetic towers in the United States and high-pressure machines in Germany.
As for the auxiliary equipment, most of them are selected from foreign auction markets. All the machines and equipment that can be manufactured at home and in factories are solved by themselves. The plant includes production departments of sulfuric acid, synthetic ammonia, nitric acid, ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate and several auxiliary production departments. After civil construction, equipment installation, monomer, linkage, partial and full debugging, it was put into operation on February 5, 1937, and the first batch of ammonium sulfate was successfully produced. It is exciting that such a joint venture with world advanced level can be put into production smoothly within 30 months. Fan Xudong wrote in "Chronicle Diary": "The high-pressure synthetic ammonia industry, which big countries strive for hegemony, has not been realized in China. In China, there are soda ash and caustic soda first, which can only be said to be winged; Now there are synthetic ammonia, sulfuric acid and nitric acid, and it is thought that there is another wing. With wings, China Chemical can take off. "
At the end of July, 1937, Pingping and Tianjin successively fell. Before the Japanese invaders entered Tianjin, Fan Xudong ordered the employees of Li Yong Alkali Plant and Jiuda Salt Plant to stop production and evacuate, leaving only a few people to protect the plants, such as Xu Tengba, director of Li Yong Alkali Plant and Peng Jiusheng, director of Jiuda Salt Plant. Lianyungang Jiudapu Branch and Qingdao Yongyu Salt Company also left early according to Fan Xudong's notice. On the eve of the fall of Nanjing, Yonglining Factory was only put into production for nine months, and it also stopped production according to the arrangement of Fan Xudong, and its employees retreated to the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
The successive fall of Tianjin, Tanggu and Nanjing caused heavy losses to the industry founded by Fan Xudong and the chemical industry just started in China. However, Fan Xudong's determination to develop the chemical industry is unshakable, and he insists on rebuilding his career in the rear area. Shortly after the "July 7th Incident", Li et al. were sent to set up Jiuda and Huaxi offices in Chongqing to receive the personnel from the two companies who came to Sichuan one after another, and selected Ziliujing in the hinterland of Sichuan and Laolongba near Wutongqiao Salt Area in Qianwei County as the bases for building factories behind the two factories. Fan Xudong worked hard and got approval from the Salt Bureau to set up the Jiudachuan Factory in Ziliujing. Obtain the consent of local salt merchants, buy their brine, use local natural gas and cook refined salt in a pot; By using impurities contained in brine to extract by-products, including borax not found in seawater brine.
1938, Hankou edition of Ta Kung Pao reported the news that Jiudachuan factory was completed and put into operation. The commissioning of Jiudachuan Plant not only enabled the employees of Jiudachuan to find jobs, but also solved the problem of salt use in neighboring provinces, which caused great concern. At first, the refined salt produced by this factory was packed in sacks, which was not as good as the local lump salt. It doesn't need packaging, so it can be carried by shoulders or animals. It is easy to transport, less road consumption and more superior. In order to facilitate bulk transportation, the technicians of Jiuda University installed several hydraulic presses to press refined salt particles into 5 kg 1 salt brick. Since then, Jiuda refined salt has been sold well in Sichuan and Guizhou, and has been transported to Yuanling and Changde in Hunan for a long time, which has solved the problem that people in the two lakes lack salt because of the interruption of sea salt. Jiudachuan Factory has its own machine repair workshop and power plant, and also uses the remaining mother liquor from nearby sugar factories to ferment and rectify to make power alcohol, which is used as the fuel for automobile transportation in our factory. These measures have created conditions for Jiuda to establish itself in Sichuan.
Yonglichuan Factory is located in Laolongba of Wu Tong Bridge, with a planned area of nearly 1,000 mu. In order to occupy less fertile land, warehouses and power plants have to be built on flat land; The dormitory was built in the jungle of Zuoshan; Most of the mountains will be caves, and important workshops will be placed in huge caves to prevent air strikes. Because the cost of Sichuan well salt far exceeds that of sea salt, it is reasonable to use the method of high utilization rate of raw materials to make alkali.
1938, Hou was appointed to lead a team to Germany for investigation, preparing to purchase the patent of Tea Temple Law. After the talks broke down due to various humiliating conditions, they actively supported Hou and others to study new methods of alkali production by themselves. Through hard work, a new process of producing soda ash and ammonium chloride fertilizer by combining tea house method and ammonia-alkali method, alkali-making method and synthetic ammonia method was developed in 194 1, and the semi-industrial factory test was completed in 1943.
At that time, in recognition of Hou's achievements, Wynn Company decided to name this new law as Hou Shi Soda Law. The success of this method, as the factory said in its congratulatory message to Hou: "As a result of 20 years of profound theoretical research and selfless hard work, a new method of alkali production suitable for the environment in western China has been designed, which has opened up a new era for the world's alkali production technology." The success of the combined caustic soda process made Fan Xudong extremely happy, and at the same time strengthened his confidence and determination to establish a new caustic soda plant in western Sichuan. As a State Councillor, he publicized widely to the State Councillor and all walks of life, sought support, raised funds, and won the approval of the construction plan from the Executive Yuan of Chongqing National Government.
/kloc-in the spring of 0/940, we went to San Francisco via Hong Kong and the Philippines to purchase factory technical equipment and deep well engineering equipment, and handled the transportation to Sichuan via the China-Myanmar highway line. He bought 200 freight trucks successively, which not only transported the equipment needed by Yonglichuan factory, but also undertook the transportation task of some munitions during the Anti-Japanese War. During his stay in the United States, Fan Xudong also visited alkali plants and some chemical plants, oil drilling projects and small and medium-sized coal mines.
After returning home, he personally directed the arduous transportation work and dealt with major issues in the preparation of Yonglichuan Factory. In order to solve the problem of using coal in Yonglichuan Plant, according to geological data, he set up a semi-mechanized coal mine in the plant site, which can produce 50 tons of coal a day after it is put into production. Soon, the Japanese invaders launched the Pacific War and the China-Myanmar Highway was interrupted. After the China-India highway was barely opened to traffic, only military materials were allowed to be transported. After some equipment of Yonglichuan Factory was shipped from the United States to India, it was difficult to transport it back to China. Some delay the delivery time, and some simply cancel the contract and stop the delivery. Under the extremely difficult circumstances, Yonglichuan Factory had to stop the construction of the new process of combined soda production, and instead use the existing equipment of the factory, and use the mirabilite in Leshan and Jiajiang, neighboring counties, as raw materials to produce soda ash by Luban method, and tide over the difficulties until the victory of the Anti-Japanese War.