Chapter 261: Chapter 257 Absorption Tower
Perfikot’s high expectations for the Oil Lake were something Samantha couldn’t quite understand, but that did not prevent her from carrying out Perfikot’s orders.
The guards temporarily set up camp on the cliff and began looking for ways to descend into the valley.
However, due to the thick toxic gases lingering in the valley, the guards only made some simple attempts and didn’t actually reach the valley floor.
Despite this, they nearly encountered problems, as a few soldiers inhaled too much poison gas while searching for ways down and were already deeply poisoned when brought back.
If Perfikot hadn’t used Human Alchemy to cleanse the toxins from their bodies and repair the damage, their best outcome might have been relying on gasping to breathe for the rest of their lives.
This made Perfikot realize that to fully exploit the petroleum resources in Death Valley, the issue of the toxic gases must first be resolved.
Burning away the gases was clearly not suitable as it would cause too much impact and unpredictable consequences.
This left only two options: one was to alter the topography of Death Valley, using natural forces such as wind to disperse the hydrogen sulfide and other toxic gases in the valley.
While this could solve the problem once and for all, it would involve immense engineering work and have a huge impact on the surrounding environment.
After all, those hydrogen sulfide gases wouldn’t just vanish; they would spread around the valley, and although the concentration would greatly decrease, they would still severely affect the surrounding flora and fauna.
Moreover, with Perfikot planning to extract oil from the valley, it would inevitably develop into an important resource hub with settlements and facilities built around it, which would diminish if the environment were too hazardous.
Therefore, Perfikot planned to use absorption towers and torches to purify these hydrogen sulfide gases.
Having grown up near chemical plants and worked in the industry as an adult, Perfikot knew how to handle these hazardous gases.
The usual practice in plants is to build an absorption tower, using its special internal structure to separate the toxic and harmful components from the gas mixture through gas-liquid contact, followed by neutralizing or collecting them before releasing purified air.
The torch method is simpler; combustible gases are directly ignited and burned.
These are common methods Perfikot encountered in chemical plants, with the largest absorption tower she had seen reaching nearly a hundred meters high.
These towers were packed with vast amounts of materials to fully disperse the gas-liquid mixture, increasing contact area and promoting dissolution, and finally reacting with chemicals to achieve desulfurization.
Aside from the liquid-based wet desulfurization, there’s also dry desulfurization, but it’s not quite applicable to Perfikot, so she decided to use the wet absorption tower to solve the problem.
Perfikot chose to draft blueprints first, and after drawing them, she used the Eye of Omniscience to optimize them.
The optimized plans divided the absorption tower into three parts: the tower body, suction device, and torch.
According to Perfikot’s design, she would construct a large suction device in the valley to draw hydrogen sulfide-laden air through pipes into the absorption tower for desulfurization treatment.
The treated air would exit from the top of the tower, but considering any remaining gas or the natural rise or spread of hydrogen sulfide due to environmental factors, Perfikot also installed a torch device beside the tower that was no shorter than the tower itself.
This device would maintain a flame by drawing underground natural gas, burning hydrogen sulfide in the air to reduce pollution as much as possible.
It might sound unreliable, but in practice, this type of torch effectively purifies the air.
Once the blueprints were completed, Perfikot designed a system to extract oil from the Oil Lake and pump it up to the cliff for storage.
Even with the absorption tower and torch reducing hydrogen sulfide levels, in Perfikot’s view, Death Valley was still unsuitable for long-term human habitation.
Thus, according to Perfikot’s plan, it was more appropriate to pump the oil from the valley.
Considering costs, this wouldn’t add much, as the Petroleum Lake wasn’t too far from the cliff.
Regarding refining oil into products and petrochemicals, though, it would require constructing a chemical plant, and Perfikot hadn’t decided on those plans yet, leaving only the design of an oil storage facility for oil pumped from Petroleum Lake.
After completing these designs, Perfikot had the blueprints sent back to Eagle’s Beak Cliff, along with orders to manufacture these items.
Although Perfikot could use alchemy to create these items directly, the workload was too large, and she preferred to spend the time researching the dragon corpse in the lab.
Additionally, the Northern Territory would soon start constructing its industrial system, and having the factories that moved to the Northern Territory produce the necessary equipment was a good choice.
While considering this, Perfikot began using alchemy to make a respirator adhering to her world’s standards.
She planned to personally go and see Death Valley.
Even though her alchemy could ensure her safety without protection, the mental strain of maintaining alchemy was significant for Perfikot, even with the support of the Philosopher’s Stone.
Moreover, focusing on maintaining alchemy could distract her, making it undesirable to rely on alchemy to neutralize hydrogen sulfide and enter the valley.
After all, for an Alchemist, it would be foolish; she could have made herself a set of protective suits with that effort.
However, Perfikot didn’t descend into Death Valley as planned because Samantha refused to let her take such a risk, even when Perfikot assured that the respirator she made was enough to withstand the toxic gases in the valley.
Finally, after much persuasion, Samantha agreed to let a guard soldier first wear the respirator to descend into the valley to test its efficacy. If confirmed safe, she would let Perfikot go.