Mage? Spell Engineer!

Chapter 107 Mr.Rorschach

The sun shines in the office building, and the laboratory on the third floor is filled with bottles, jars, and strange-shaped glass instruments, in which light penetrates, refracts, and scatters.

Mr. Pierre Neusingen and other partners obeyed the Alchemy Department's instructions. When the old brother threw out the drawings, they strictly followed the drawings and ran all over the city of Valuauna to get the experimental equipment required by the Alchemy Department.

It can be called the most beautiful business partner in Valuauna.

"Is the alcohol ready? And glycerin."

"Yes, they are purchased from the manufacturers designated by the Alchemy Department."

After entering the laboratory, Rorschach sent Pierre and his big bodyguard away. He needed an assistant who was obviously not born between those two.

Antoine is quite suitable. He is smart, interested in this industry, and has a rich uncle. He is very good. Even if he takes him into Rorschach's trap, there will be no burden.

Antoine saw his uncle give him a thumbs up before leaving.

Now Rorschach and Antoine had two main ingredients on their desks, ox bile and mallow. Rorschach had already seen the former. The most eye-catching thing about it is the specialized leaf pillow under the leaves. It is like a hanging bag with purple lines like blood vessels. It is said that the more lines and darker the color, the better the quality.

There are two groups of mallow fruits: one part is the complete unprocessed fruit, and the huge green fruit pods are arranged in clusters of five. Only when you peel them open can you see the required seed part. The other half is a huge sun-dried and dehydrated seed with a purple-red skin.

The existing process has been repeatedly finalized by the old guys from the Alchemy Department, so the temperature and extraction method are both valuable for reference.

"What is the heating temperature of the first kettle?" Rorschach asked.

"The process manual of the Alchemy Department says 110 degrees, but in fact the workers are not that strict when burning charcoal and maintain it between 100 and 130 degrees."

From this, Rorschach could know that at least the active ingredients would not undergo extensive decomposition or reaction deterioration within 130 degrees.

The active ingredient Rorschach of the two plants can roughly guess the species. He looked at the finished product of the energy potion against the sunlight, and there was a purple turbid liquid hanging slightly on the wall as it swayed gently.

The burdock is extracted directly and the finished product is thick and should contain a large amount of lipids. The drying process of mallow fruit is to add water to cook and concentrate, which means that its active ingredients are soluble in water and can boost energy. They are nothing more than glycosides, alkaloids or organic acids (salts).

“The chefs said that if the juice cooked from malva fruit is not concentrated enough or if too much is added to the ox bile juice at one time, the whole pot of product will become extremely muddy, and in severe cases, it will be separated into layers. The product will be useless.”

"Because one is an oil phase and the other is a water phase." Rorschach guessed that there should be trace amounts of surfactants in the two plants that can act as emulsifiers. Originally, water and higher fatty acids are not miscible with each other, and the active agent is like a "matchmaker" that forces them together. If the number of "matchmakers" is not enough and they are too busy, turbidity and phase separation will occur.

If it is just for the old buddies in the Alchemy Department and internal digestion of the Magic Guild as before, it doesn't matter whether it is clear or turbid, just drink tons and tons of it and that's it. But now it is to be used as a commodity. In Rorschach's eyes, it is unqualified. It is a turbid liquid. It is easy to associate it with sewage and dirty water, and clear and uniform liquid is easily accepted by customers.

[Decomposition Technique] After going down, the capsule of ox bile grass was not completely broken according to Rorschach's intention. It seems that in addition to ordinary chemical substances, this grass does have magic activation components.

In this case, this is when the assistant comes into play: "Antoine, you go chop up the ox bile, and I will build the equipment."

The glassware on hand was different from the one in his previous life. The only thing Rorschach could use for distillation was a gooseneck bottle, and there was no condenser tube. Fortunately, the heating temperature was not high and the gooseneck was long enough. Rorschach could just wrap a towel around the gooseneck and keep watering the towel.

Alcohol is a good thing. As a lower alcohol, it can be said to be the easiest social butterfly to obtain. It can be miscible with water in any proportion and can also dissolve many organic substances. However, for the ox bile extract, Rorschach did not plan to directly soak and heat it in alcohol from the beginning.

"It's cut. Is this the right size?" Antoine completed the task assigned by Rorschach, and his hands were covered with brown-green slurry.

"Okay, thank you." Rorschach took the raw material with his mage's hand, stuffed it into the gooseneck bottle through the big mouth, and then added enough water to completely cover the broken pieces.

"Add water?" Antoine remembered that the water should be concentrated and evaporated after squeezing and filtering, and he didn't know why Rorschach did the opposite.

"Yes, add water, and then let the water boil together with the oil phase in the plant." Rorschach judged that the oil in the plant should be light oil, and the concentration temperature is close to the boiling temperature of water. He could try the steam distillation method. Since water and volatile components have partial pressures when they azeotrope, they will boil as long as the total pressure reaches atmospheric pressure, and they can be evaporated together below the boiling points of both, which is equivalent to vacuum distillation for organic oils.

"You control the fire source. The temperature should be controlled at 90 degrees first. If the amount of steam is less, then increase the temperature." Rorschach inserted the thermometer into the oil bath pot. Since the heating temperature is around 100 degrees, glycerin will be fine.

Slowly, water and green oil appeared in the conical flask at the receiving end of the gooseneck. When the amount was large, they separated into layers, which was much clearer and purer than the brown-green slurry directly squeezed out.

On the other hand, the extraction of mallow fruit is to crush the dried fruit, repeatedly extract it with alcohol, and evaporate and concentrate it to obtain a brown-red extract. This is done by Rorschach based on his experience. Considering that its active ingredients can be concentrated in the water phase, the extract obtained by this method can retain glycosides, alkaloids, organic acids, etc.

It would be great if there was a Soxhlet extractor. Although the extract has been obtained, if there is alcohol circulation and distillation, the yield should be even higher. Rorschach separated out a portion of the extract and continued to heat it into a brown powder, which he then carefully baked and covered with a plugged glass funnel.

This is a delicate job, and Rorschach doesn't know the range between sublimation and decomposition of key components, so he can only try to slowly increase the temperature. He kept adjusting the baking temperature, and as expected, crystal clear needle-shaped crystals slowly grew inside the inverted funnel. In order to speed up the condensation of the sublimated components, Rorschach also used [Ice Touch] with the hand holding the funnel.

"It's so beautiful." Antoine couldn't help but come over to admire Rorschach's masterpiece.

"Go and watch the temperature, don't burn it dry!" Rorschach carefully scraped the crystals off the funnel.

On the other side, the ox bile extract is also co-distilled with water, and the Rorschach extract separates into phases.

Antoine has some knowledge: "Does it need to be distilled to remove the water?"

Unfortunately, the prediction failed. Rorschach simply added crushed dry chlorolime powder to the separated green oil. When the added powder no longer formed agglomerates, it meant that it had completed its mission of absorbing water. After simple filtration, refined oil with extremely low water content is born.

Rorschach separated another part of the refined oil of ox bile, added alcohol and a small amount of salt, stirred continuously, and separated the phases again. But this time he kept not the oil but the alcoholic water phase, heated and concentrated it to obtain a yellow-green clear liquid.

Current samples include ox bile extract oil and concentrated extract, malva fruit extract and crystals.

Rorschach mixed them two by two and obtained a purple liquid. Among them, the combination of concentrated extract and crystallization had the deepest purple color and was the clearest and most transparent. The amount of the sample could only be placed in the smallest glass bottle. Rorschach picked it up and it emitted a charming and brilliant crystal purple light in the sunlight.

The experiment started in the morning and lasted until about four o'clock in the afternoon. Rorschach and Antoine had already missed lunch, but they did not feel hungry at all. Both of them stared at the small "Essence of Hercules" without taking their eyes away.

"It's beautiful, a beautiful purple."

"It should be purer than the best products from the Alchemy Department." Mr. Rorschach was extremely satisfied.

Rejecting gambling and drug addiction starts with you and me! Although it’s a Breaking Bad joke, please don’t get me wrong when commenting! This thing made by Rorschach is not addictive! No! Everyone understands it as an enhanced version of Red Bull, a nitrogen pump blessed by magic. I kowtow to the book friends who are following me: bang bang bang bang bang