Lin Sanqi felt like Lei Jun was holding a product launch conference.
Because at this time he was standing in the center of the field, with the drug production line beside him, and surrounded by students, teachers, and professors forming a semicircle.
Now all Lin Sanqi needs is a pair of jeans and a wireless microphone.
That's not right. In order to let hundreds of people at the scene hear his voice, Lin San prepared a set of speakers with built-in Bluetooth wireless microphone.
"Look, these production lines are drug production equipment lines invented by foreign research institutions. What I want to show you today is equivalent to how a pharmaceutical factory produces drugs, which will also be our main task in the future.
The pharmaceutical production process can be simply divided into three parts. The first stage is the crushing and sieving of the raw materials. "Xiao Li, push the stainless steel pot over here."
As secretary, Li Yujie took up his post immediately.
He was seen pushing a huge metal container over. Under everyone's gaze, Lin Sanqi opened the metal container, revealing a large pot of white powder inside. You could also see that the powder contained a lot of crystals.
Lin Sanqi then introduced:
"We are here with pharmacy professors from major universities across China, as well as freshly minted pharmacy graduates. You should all be familiar with this white powder. Yes, this is the API used to produce anti-tuberculosis drugs.
Now I'll combine these raw medicinal powders with this dryer, and this machine will automatically dry them completely. Okay, Xiaobai, you can press the red button now."
After hearing this, the new secretary Bai Ruli immediately pressed the production line switch according to Lin Sanqi's previous instructions.
When the machine starts up, through the tempered glass of the dryer, you can see that the raw medicinal powder inside is automatically tumbling and stirring. At the same time, the raw medicinal powder is simultaneously ground into fine powder and automatically dried.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the manufacturing process of domestic pharmaceutical factories was entirely manual.
Take the drying step of the raw materials as an example. Domestic pharmaceutical factories use a hot air blower to blow continuously, and then workers use a large shovel to stir the powder like rice noodles.
Let’s not talk about the issue of hygiene and sterility.
The difficulty arises because the drying temperature of raw medicinal powder is generally between 40 and 50 degrees, and how to manually control the temperature is a challenge.
If the temperature is too high, the powder will be too dry and difficult to shape when pressed into a mold. It's like trying to mold ordinary flour into the shape of a pill. It's impossible and will fall apart.
However, if the temperature is too low and the medicine powder is too moist, it will also affect the efficacy and storage of the medicine.
So don’t underestimate this simple step. This step has stumped most domestic pharmaceutical companies, and it is difficult for experienced workers to get started.
The dryer is equipped with an automatic timer, and the device stops frying when the time is up.
Under everyone's curious gaze, Lin Sanqi transferred the raw medicinal powder in the equipment to the next level of production line.
(If it is a fully automatic device, it is a one-stop process and does not require human operation)
Lin Sanqi's voice rang out:
"Okay, next we have to proceed to the second step, which is filling and pressing the powder, that is, how to turn the powder into a tablet. Professor Chai, how is this done in China now?"
Professor Chai Guoli of Peking University smiled wryly and said:
"We borrowed the traditional Chinese medicine method of making pills and made many molds out of wood. Inside each mold were carved many holes the size of pills. When making the pills, workers filled them with powder by hand.
The two molds are then combined and pressed with a wooden hammer. After a few minutes of rest, the tablets are formed and poured out one by one."
Lin Sanqi joked:
"Then this is the same principle as making mooncakes in a pastry shop."
Everyone chuckled, and it was obvious that everyone had a picture in their minds.
Lin Sanqi then raised another question:
"For handmade tablets like this, their hardness can't be guaranteed, right? I'm afraid they'll crumble with just a touch of your finger."
Professor Chai nodded. "Yes, if we throw our pills into water, they'll immediately swell up like cakes. They won't be hard enough."
Lin Sanqi asked again:
"I asked, what if a pill irritates the esophagus and stomach? How can we avoid this irritation if the pill dissolves in our mouth? Another possibility is that some pills cannot be neutralized by stomach acid and must dissolve in the intestines. How can we avoid the damage caused by stomach acid?"
From an anatomical perspective, when a pill is taken orally, it first passes through the esophagus, into the stomach, and finally into the intestines.
If a tablet needs to be absorbed in the intestines to be effective (later enteric-coated tablets), but because the tablet is not hard enough, it melts in the mouth and will be absorbed directly in the esophagus or stomach, the efficacy of the drug will be greatly affected.
Anyone who is a pharmacist knows this principle.
Professor Chai smiled bitterly again at this time:
"Commissioner Lin, the problem you mentioned is difficult to solve with current domestic technology. I know that foreign pills are undergoing stress testing, but this is currently impossible in China."
Lin Sanqi asked again:
"If the tablet fails the pressure test, there's still a capsule. I'm a doctor, not a complete layman in pharmacy. What's the current status of capsule production in my country?"
Yes, my country was able to produce capsules in the 1960s, but the story behind it is a bit comical.
In the 1950s, there was a small mountainous county in Zhejiang Province. There was a worker named Pan Guangming who worked in an American pharmaceutical factory. He was smart and observant, so he secretly learned the hollow capsule manufacturing technology that had just emerged at that time.
After returning to his hometown Xinchang in 1953, Pan Guangming used copper chopsticks as molds, aluminum cans to melt glue, and a fan as a blower to manually produce the first hollow capsule using an extremely primitive method.
The capsules were produced, filling a gap in the country, but the output was pitifully low. One reason was that the production process was too primitive and there were no conditions for industrial mass production.
Professor Chai then continued to introduce:
"Secondly, the raw material for making capsules is gelatin, the main component of which is water-soluble protein derived from the partial hydrolysis of animal collagen, which is mainly obtained from cowhide, pig skin, fish bones and fish scales.
But Commissioner Lin, you have to know that our domestic food supply is currently tight, and fish and meat are even more scarce. At school, for example, we only get meat once a month, and that meat is so tiny you have to use a magnifying glass to find it.
Therefore, due to the scarcity of raw materials, current capsules are completely unreliable and can only be used for specialized medicines in specialized departments. For industrial mass production, we still need to consider other methods and see if there are any alternatives.
At this time, Professor Shi Longchang of Zhejiang University said:
"A colleague at our school once proposed an alternative solution, which was to use quicklime to process leather waste, which could also be boiled into gelatin.
In this way, the materials for gelatin are easier to obtain, such as belts and leather shoes in scrap collection stations; waste scraps from leather factories, etc. Gelatin can be obtained in this way and further made into capsules.
If pig hides, cow hides, and fish scales are difficult to obtain in bulk, then discarded leather belts, leather shoes, and other leather products should still be plentiful. Collecting them nationwide could indeed solve the problem of raw material shortages.”
Lin Sanqi was shocked when he heard this, thinking that people in Zhejiang Province are really smart. They came up with this clever idea in the 1960s?
You have to know that decades later, Xinchang, the "capsule town" that produces 40% of the world's capsules every year, this industry was almost destroyed.
It was because of the exposure of the "toxic capsule incident" that the raw materials used were the discarded leather products and scraps mentioned by Professor Shi.
This matter is very dangerous, Lin Sanqi must make preparations in advance.
"Professor Shi, this won't work. We can't use leather belts and shoes to make gelatin. That's industrial gelatin, and it's harmful."
At this time, a student in the crowd was dissatisfied:
"Commissioner Lin, leather shoes, belts, and other leather products are made from animal fur and contain gelatin. Why can't we use them? I remember the textbook saying that when our troops crossed the grasslands and had nothing to eat, they boiled and ate the belts, and it wouldn't necessarily be harmful."
Lin Sanqi gave a thumbs up, thinking that what you said is politically correct and that the young man has a bright future.
But he still had to make it clear. After all, he was not a black-hearted capitalist. What he wanted to make was a medicine of conscience, not a black-hearted medicine that would poison people to death.
"This student's question is very good. We all know that leather shoes and belts are made from animal fur, which contains gelatin. You are all pharmacy students, so you should have studied chemistry systematically.
Leather products such as leather shoes and belts have undergone chemical treatments such as leather tanning.
It generally goes through the steps of sodium sulfide dehairing, Glauber's salt soaking, liming, pickling, chrome tanning, dyeing, etc. During chrome tanning, polyurethane-chromium complex, tannic acid, etc. must be added.
In other words, this kind of leather product will produce something called "chromium".
We all know from studying chemistry that chromium is a polyvalent metal element, the most common of which are divalent chromium, trivalent chromium and hexavalent chromium.
At the same time, chromium is also an essential trace element for the human body, and both animals and plants contain trace amounts of chromium.
Among them, divalent chromium is involved in the metabolism of sugar and fat in humans and animals. It sounds like it is beneficial to the human body, just like a nutritional supplement, right?
You are wrong. The chromium produced by leather products is hexavalent chromium.
Hexavalent chromium is a harmful element. Once it enters the human body, it can cause damage to internal organs such as the liver and kidneys. In particular, if it accumulates in the human body, it is carcinogenic and may induce gene mutations.
A slight exclamation of surprise emanated from the students below. (End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
