《化学工程与工艺专业英语》-最全翻译

专业资料 Unit 1 Chemical Industry

化学工业

1.Origins of the Chemical Industry

Although the use of chemicals dates back to the ancient civilizations, the evolution of what

we know as the modern chemical industry started much more recently. It may be considered

to have begun during the Industrial Revolution, about 1800, and developed to provide

chemicals roe use by other industries. Examples are alkali for soapmaking, bleaching powder

for cotton, and silica and sodium carbonate for glassmaking. It will be noted that these are all

inorganic chemicals. The organic chemicals industry started in the 1860s with the exploitation

of William Henry Perkin’s discovery if the first synthetic dyestuff—mauve. At the start of the

twentieth century the emphasis on research on the applied aspects of chemistry in Germany

had paid off handsomely, and by 1914 had resulted in the German chemical industry having

75% of the world market in chemicals. This was based on the discovery of new dyestuffs plus

the development of both the contact process for sulphuric acid and the Haber process for

ammonia. The later required a major technological breakthrough that of being able to carry

out chemical reactions under conditions of very high pressure for the first time. The

experience gained with this was to stand Germany in good stead, particularly with the rapidly

increased demand for nitrogen-based compounds (ammonium salts for fertilizers and nitric

acid for explosives manufacture) with the outbreak of world warⅠin 1914. This initiated

profound changes which continued during the inter-war years (1918-1939).

1． 化学工业的起源

尽管化学品的使用可以追溯到古代文明时代，我们所谓的现代化学工业的发展却是非常

专业资料 近代（才开始的）。可以认为它起源于工业革命其间，大约在1800年，并发展成为为其它工业部门提供化学原料的产业。比如制肥皂所用的碱，棉布生产所用的漂白粉，玻璃制造业所用的硅及Na2CO3. 我们会注意到所有这些都是无机物。有机化学工业的开始是在十九世纪六十年代以William Henry Perkin 发现第一种合成染料—苯胺紫并加以开发利用为标志的。20世纪初，德国花费大量资金用于实用化学面的重点研究，到1914年，德国的化学工业在世界化学产品市场上占有75%的份额。这要归因于新染料的发现以及硫酸的接触法生产和氨的哈伯生产工艺的发展。而后者需要较大的技术突破使得化学反应第一次可以在非常高的压力条件下进行。这面所取得的成绩对德国很有帮助。特别是由于1914年第一次世界大仗的爆发，对以氮为基础的化合物的需求飞速增长。这种深刻的改变一直持续到战后（1918-1939）。

Since 1940 the chemical industry has grown at a remarkable rate, although this has

slowed significantly in recent years. The lion’s share of this growth has been in the organic

chemicals sector due to the development and growth of the petrochemicals area since 1950s.

The explosives growth in petrochemicals in the 1960s and 1970s was largely due to the

enormous increase in demand for synthetic polymers such as polyethylene, polypropylene,

nylon, polyesters and epoxy resins.

1940年以来，化学工业一直以引人注目的速度飞速发展。尽管这种发展的速度近年来已大大减慢。化学工业的发展由于1950年以来油化学领域的研究和开发大部分在有机化学面取得。油化工在60年代和70年代的迅猛发展主要是由于人们对于合成高聚物如聚乙烯、聚丙烯、尼龙、聚脂和环氧树脂的需求巨大增加。

The chemical industry today is a very diverse sector of manufacturing industry, within

which it plays a central role. It makes thousands of different chemicals which the general

public only usually encounter as end or consumer products. These products are purchased

because they have the required properties which make them suitable for some particular

专业资料 application, e.g. a non-stick coating for pans or a weedkiller. Thus chemicals are ultimately

sold for the effects that they produce.

今天的化学工业已经是制造业中有着多分支的部门，并且在制造业中起着核心的作用。它生产了数千种不同的化学产品，而人们通常只接触到终端产品或消费品。这些产品被购买是因为他们具有某些性质适合（人们）的一些特别的用途，例如，用于盆的不粘涂层或一种杀虫剂。这些化学产品归根到底是由于它们能产生的作用而被购买的。

2. Definition of the Chemical Industry

At the turn of the century there would have been little difficulty in defining what

constituted the chemical industry since only a very limited range of products was

manufactured and these were clearly chemicals, e.g., alkali, sulphuric acid. At present, however,

many intermediates to products produced, from raw materials like crude oil through (in some

cases) many intermediates to products which may be used directly as consumer goods, or

readily converted into them. The difficulty cones in deciding at which point in this sequence

the particular operation ceases to be part of the chemical industry’s sphere of activities. To

consider a specific example to illustrate this dilemma, emulsion paints may contain poly (vinyl

chloride) / poly (vinyl acetate). Clearly, synthesis of vinyl chloride (or acetate) and its

polymerization are chemical activities. However, if formulation and mixing of the paint,

including the polymer, is carried out by a branch of the multinational chemical company which

manufactured the ingredients, is this still part of the chemical industry of does it mow belong

in the decorating industry?

2． 化学工业的定义

在本世纪初，要定义什么是化学工业是不太困难的，因为那时所生产的化学品是很有限的，而且是非常清楚的化学品，例如，烧碱，硫酸。然而现在有数千种化学产品被生产，从