【双语阅读】化肥：养活全世界人口

TheHaberBosch Process

来自翻吧

00:0008:58

It has been called one of the greatest inventions of the 20th Century, and without it almost half the world'spopulationwould not be alive today.

化肥被称为20世纪最伟大的发明之一。如果没有它，今天世界上的人口将减少近一半。

A hundred years ago two German chemists, Fritz Haber andCarl Bosch, devised a way to transformnitrogenin the air into fertiliser, using what became known as the Haber-Bosch process.

一百多年前，两位德国化学家弗里茨·哈柏（Caritz Bosch）和卡尔·博斯（Carl Bosch）设计出了一种将空气中的氮气转化为肥料的方法，这种方法后来被称为“哈柏-博斯制氨法”。

Plants need nitrogen: it is one of their five basic requirements, along with potassium, phosphorus, water and sunlight.In a natural state, plants grow, they die, the nitrogen they contain returns to the soil, and new plants use it to grow.

植物需要氮：氮是植物存活的五大基本要素之一，其他四项分别是钾、磷、水和阳光。在自然状态下，植物生长然后凋零，体内的氮元素又会回归土壤，满足新生长的植物所需。

Agriculture disrupts that cycle: we harvest the plants, and eat them.

不过，农业打破了这种自然循环：植物成熟后，我们人为进行收割并食用，其中的成分未能及时回归土壤。

From the earliest days of agriculture, farmers discovered various ways to prevent crop yields from declining over time: by restoring nitrogen to their fields.Manure has nitrogen. So does compost.

早在农业文明的初期，农民就发现了许多能够避免农作物产量逐年下降的方法，即恢复农田里氮元素含量。动物粪便中含有氮，腐化物质中也含有氮。

The roots of legumes host bacteria that replenish nitrogen levels.That is why it helps to include peas or beans in crop rotation.

豆科植物的根须上有能够固氮的根瘤菌。因此，庄稼轮作时往往会种上豌豆或大豆等豆科植物。

Industrial process

工业化过程

But these techniques struggle to fully satisfy a plant's appetite for nitrogen.Add more, and the plant grows better.

这些早期的技术难以充分满足植物对氮的需求。吸收的氮元素越多，植物长得越好。

That is exactly what Fritz Haber worked out how to do, driven in part by the promise of a lucrative contract from the chemical companyBASF.

如何提供更多的氮元素正是弗里茨·哈柏研究内容。哈柏之所以致力于此，一方面是因为化学公司巴斯夫（BASF）与他签订协议，承诺为其研究结果提供丰厚的报酬。

That company's engineer, Carl Bosch, then managed to replicate Haber's process on an industrial scale.

巴斯夫公司的工程师卡尔·博斯（Carl Bosch）将哈柏的制氨法运用到大规模的工业化生产之中。

Both men later won Nobel Prizes - controversially, in Haber's case, as many by then considered him a war criminal.

两人后来都获得了诺贝尔化学奖——不过，哈柏的获奖引发争议，因为当时有许多人视他为战争犯。

The Haber-Bosch process is perhaps the most significant example of what economists call "technological substitution", where we seem to have reached some basic physical limit, then find a workaround.

哈柏-博斯制氨法也许是最能体现经学家口中“技术替代性”的例子——当原来的技术达到极限性，那么就会找到替代性的技术。

For most of human history, if you wanted more food to support more people, then you needed more land.

在人类历史上的大多数时间里，要想得到更多食物、养活更多人，就要有更多的土地。

But the thing about land, asMarkTwain once joked, is that they are not making it any more.

不过，正如马克吐温曾经开过的玩笑那样：”买地吧，没人能再造出地来了”，这话道明了土地稀缺的本质。

Haber and Bosch provided a substitute: instead of more land, make nitrogen fertiliser.

哈柏和博斯提供了一种替代方案：与其开垦出更多土地，不如制造出氮肥使土地更加肥沃。

It was like alchemy."Brot aus Luft", as Germans put it, or "Bread from air".From air and quite a lot of fossil fuels.

氮肥简直就像变铁为金的炼金术一样。德国人有一句俗语：“从空气中变出面包”。某种意义上德国谚语说对了，氮肥确实来自于“空”气，再加上大量化石燃料。

Haber discovered that was necessary, with a catalyst, to break the bonds between air's nitrogen atoms and persuade them to bond withhydrogeninstead.

哈柏发现，必须用催化剂打破氮气中氮原子之间的键，并使它们与氢键接合。

Imagine the heat of a wood-fired pizza oven, with the pressure you would experience 2km under the sea.

想象一下火烧披萨烤箱的温度，再加上海平面以下2千米深的压强。

To create those conditions on a scale sufficient to produce 160 million tonnes of ammonia a year - the majority of which is used for fertiliser - the Haber-Bosch process today consumes more than 1% of all the world's energy.

为了创造这种的条件以每年生产1.6亿吨氨水——其中大部分用于制造化肥，哈柏-博斯制氨法消耗了全世界1%以上的能源。

That is a lot of carbon emissions.

巨大的能源消耗必然带来大量的碳排放。

化肥提高了粮食产量。

如果哪天生物科技解决了这些问题就行了         

美女不坏~~ 发表于 2017-7-26 11:10
如果哪天生物科技解决了这些问题就行了

好久不见，换头像了呀

沙漠里的游鱼 发表于 2017-7-26 11:38
好久不见，换头像了呀

Long time no  see!  he is  my son!

学习了。

对合成氨一次详细的普及，合成氨以后也冲破了有机和无机的禁区。