(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
Every winter some 20 million tons of salt are dumped on America's roads.
The sodium chloride melts ice or prevents its formation, helping to prevent accidents.
But road salt has its downsides.
"This is actually not very economical, because salt is mainly corrosive."
Seda Kizilel, a chemical engineer at Koc University in Istanbul, Turkey.
She says salt's corrosive effects don't discriminate—they affect "vehicles and also nature, plants, microorganisms."
So Kizilel and her colleagues designed a road substance that can de-ice itself.
They started with a polymer called SBS, commonly added to strengthen asphalt.
They whipped up an emulsion of SBS with potassium formate,
an alternative salt that's been studied as a more environmentally friendly de-icer than regular road salt.
Then they added that emulsion to bitumen-the sticky black stuff in asphalt.
They subjected their creation and regular bitumen to the winter weather conditions that typically lead to black ice.
Turns out the hybrid compound delayed ice formation 10 minutes longer than the control.
And the samples continued releasing salt for more than two months.
The study is in the journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.
Of course, 10 minutes of de-icing is a nice head start—but it's not going to put salt truck drivers out of business.
"But we're saying that, during the first 10 to 15 minutes, when the road becomes very icy, this material and this release of salt from this functional bitumen is going to be very useful and potentially eliminate many accidents on the roads."
The next step, she says, is to pave a test surface and drive on it-to literally see what happens when the rubber meets the road.
参考译文
每年冬天在美国的高速公路上会撒约2000万吨的盐。
因为盐能够将冰融化及阻碍冰形成，而且有助于减少事故发生。
但这种道路用盐也存在着弊端。
“并不经济，因为盐具有腐蚀作用。”
土耳其伊斯坦堡科克大学的化学工程师赛达克赛尔说道。
她表示盐的腐蚀作用不容小觑—会对车辆、自然、植物及微生物造成影响。
因此克赛尔和她的同事们设计出可以自主融冰的公路材料。
她们首先从一种名为SBS的聚合物开始，这种物质通常用于增强沥青。
她们将SBS的乳状液同甲酸钾混合搅拌。
而甲酸钾是一种对环境影响较小，能够替代盐的物质。
然后她们把这种乳状物加入到沥青中的黑色粘性物质柏油中。
而后这种添加新物质的复合物同普通柏油都被放置在冬季天气环境条件下进行对比试验。
结果显示，相比普通柏油，这种新的复合物需要多10分钟的时间才能形成冰。
而未来2个月的试验中，样本中的复合物还能不间断的释出盐类。
这项研究已在《工业与工程化学研究》杂志上发表。
当然，将冰的形成时间延长10分钟是一个很好的开始—但这并不意味撒盐融冰将退出历史舞台。
我们是说在开始的10至15分钟内，当路面开始结冰，这种材料的沥青及从中释放出的盐类能够消除避免许多路面的事故。
她表示下一步就是要在一小块路面上铺设这种材料并在上面驾驶进行实际试验，验证橡胶与路面接触会发生什么。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
重点讲解
1.lead to 导致
例句:A lack of prudence may lead to financial problems.
不够谨慎可能会导致财政上出现问题。
2.start with 开始
例句:To start with, the pressure on her was very heavy, but it's eased off a bit now.
一开始，她的压力很大，但现在已经好些了。
3.whip up 鞭打
例句:I used to entertain at home quite a lot, and I can still whip up a fairly decent dinner party.
我原来经常在家自娱自乐，现在也还能迅速准备好一顿颇为像样的晚宴。
4.turn out 关掉;结果是
例句:Some of Davis's tips are banal to say the least: If you are working from home, turn off the TV stands out.
戴维斯的一些诀窍至少可以说是平淡乏味的。如果你在家中工作，关掉电视就是突出的一例。
