经济学人63:怎样用工业废渣制造砖块

 　　Science and Technology

　　科技

　　Materials science

　　材料科学

　　Don't slag¹ it off

　　废渣别融掉

　　How to make bricks out of industrial waste

　　怎样用工业废渣制造砖块

　　BUILDING houses and offices out of toxic² waste sounds like a pretty eccentric idea.

　　用有毒废料建造住房和办公室的点子听起来真怪。

　　Yet it may become commonplace if Ana Andres of the University of Cantabria in Spain has her way.

　　但是如果西班牙坎塔布里亚大学的Ana Andres成功的话，这项技术就会广泛应用。

　　For Dr Andres and her colleagues suggest, in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, that the humble³ brick need not be made of pure clay.

　　Ana Andres博士和她的同事们在《工业与工程化学研究》中提出，一般的砖不需要全用粘土烧制。

　　Instead, up to 30% of its weight could be slag—the toxic gunk left over when steel is made.

　　反而，高达30%的重量可以是矿渣，这是一种在制钢过程中产生的有毒废料。

　　Waelz slag, to give its technical name, is composed mainly of silica but is also undesirably⁴ rich in poisonous metals like lead and zinc⁵.

　　学名是威尔兹的废渣主要由硅土组成，也不可避免的含有诸如铅和锌之类的有毒金属。

　　Getting rid of it safely is thus a problem. Getting rid of it usefully might sound like a miracle.

　　如何安全的去除这些金属是一个问题。能够去除听起来就是个奇迹。

　　But that is what Dr Andres proposes.

　　但这正是Andres博士打算解决的。

　　A series of experiments she has conducted over the past three years suggests this is not only possible but will make bricks cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

　　再过去的三年中，她所做的一系列实验表明，安全去除有毒物质不仅可行，还可以降低制砖成本，更加环保。

　　Her research started after she read of previous work which had shown that many ceramics⁶ suffer no loss of integrity when the clay used to make them is mixed with other materials, and that the molecular⁷ structure of some ceramics acts to trap atoms of toxic heavy metals.

　　一些研究表明，在用于烧制的粘土中添加了其他材料后，陶瓷整体的性质没有减弱，一些陶瓷的分子结构捕捉有毒重的金属原子，读到这些后，博士开始了她的研究。

　　She wondered whether these things might be true of brick clay and Waelz slag, and she began experimenting.

　　她想知道这些原理对制砖粘土和威尔兹废料是否同样适用，她开始实验。

　　The answer, she found, was that they are.

　　发现答案是，同样适用。

　　Bricks show no loss of useful mechanical properties even when 20-30% of their content is slag. Nor do they leak.

　　就算20-30%的是废料，砖的力学性能也没有降低。有毒物质也没有泄露。

　　To check that, Dr Andres and her team ground their bricks into powder and soaked them in water, shook them in special machines for days at a time, and even tried to dissolve them in nitric acid.

　　为了验证这一点，博士和她的科研小组将砖头打成粉末，浸泡在水里，在特殊装置里几天不停地摇晃，甚至在硝酸中溶解粉末。

　　The pollutants⁸ stayed resolutely⁹ put.

　　污染物没有一丝一毫泄露。

　　Moreover, adding slag to the clay reduced by a third the amount of carbon dioxide each brick released during its manufacture, because wood pulp¹⁰ is added to clay before it is fired, and less clay means less pulp is needed.

　　而且，通过在砖头中增加废料，可以在制砖的过程中减少三分之一的二氧化碳排放，因为添加在粘土中的木浆没有经过燃烧，粘土越少，需要的木浆越少。

　　The cost, too, fell, because slag is free, whereas clay costs money.

　　成本也有所降低，因为废料是免费的，只有粘土需要用钱购买。

　　There is, of course, the problem of customers.

　　当然，消费者是个问题。

　　Whether people will be willing to live and work in structures that double as waste dumps is moot¹¹.

　　人们是否愿意住在工作在砖头含有有毒物质，但面积增加一倍的建筑物中还不得而知。

　　But for those who want to make an eco-point, what better way could there be than, literally¹², to build their green credentials¹³?

　　但是对于那些想做点对生态有益的人，说实话，什么会比建造环保建筑这一绿色证明更好的方式呢？

1 slag   

n.熔渣，铁屑，矿渣；v.使变成熔渣，变熔渣

参考例句：

• Millions of tons of slag now go into building roads each year.每年有数百万吨炉渣用于铺路。
• The slag powder had been widely used as the additive in the cement and concrete.矿渣微粉作为水泥混凝土的掺和料已得到广泛应用。

2 toxic   

adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的

参考例句：

• The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
• There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。

3 humble   

adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低

参考例句：

• In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见，他将在选举中获胜。
• Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。

4 undesirably   

参考例句：

5 zinc   

n.锌；vt.在...上镀锌

参考例句：

• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。
• Zinc is used to protect other metals from corrosion.锌被用来保护其他金属不受腐蚀。

6 ceramics   

n.制陶业；陶器

参考例句：

• an exhibition of ceramics by Picasso 毕加索陶瓷作品展
• The ceramics bore the imprint of Luca della Robbia. 陶器上印有卢卡·德拉·罗比亚的字样。

7 molecular   

adj.分子的；克分子的

参考例句：

• The research will provide direct insight into molecular mechanisms.这项研究将使人能够直接地了解分子的机理。
• For the pressure to become zero, molecular bombardment must cease.当压强趋近于零时，分子的碰撞就停止了。

8 pollutants   

污染物质（尤指工业废物）( pollutant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Pollutants are constantly being released into the atmosphere. 污染物质正在不断地被排放到大气中去。
• The 1987 Amendments limit 301(g) discharges to a few well-studied nonconventional pollutants. 1987年的修正案把第301条（g）的普通排放限制施加在一些认真研究过的几种非常规污染物上。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

9 resolutely   

adj.坚决地，果断地

参考例句：

• He resolutely adhered to what he had said at the meeting. 他坚持他在会上所说的话。
• He grumbles at his lot instead of resolutely facing his difficulties. 他不是果敢地去面对困难，而是抱怨自己运气不佳。

10 pulp   

n.果肉，纸浆；v.化成纸浆，除去...果肉，制成纸浆

参考例句：

• The pulp of this watermelon is too spongy.这西瓜瓤儿太肉了。
• The company manufactures pulp and paper products.这个公司制造纸浆和纸产品。

11 moot   

v.提出；adj.未决议的；n.大会；辩论会

参考例句：

• The question mooted in the board meeting is still a moot point.那个在董事会上提出讨论的问题仍未决的。
• The oil versus nuclear equation is largely moot.石油和核能之间的关系还很有争议。

12 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

13 credentials   

n.证明，资格，证明书，证件

参考例句：

• He has long credentials of diplomatic service.他的外交工作资历很深。
• Both candidates for the job have excellent credentials.此项工作的两个求职者都非常符合资格。