字神帝國英語天地

今日主題：Asphalt Roads Could De-Ice Themselves  自主融冰新材料

洪欣老師推薦：托福聽力最好的課外教材：60-Second Science
康康精選托福會考的主題，堅持每天精聽一定會進步的哦!!

建議方法：
1. 先聽兩三遍 (不看文稿)
2. 再一句一句聽寫 (每句都要聽寫數遍，直到寫出85%以上的字)
3. 最後check文稿，看哪聽不出來，單字沒背過，還是發音不熟。
4. 堅持天天聽，就能每天進步哦。

MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：喜歡的同學，幫忙推或按讚哦~~
http://online1.tingclass.net/voaspe/…/20160119sa_science.mp3

只有音檔怎夠，聽不懂地方，不用怕，康康幫你準備好中英文稿了：

中英文稿：
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."
每年冬天，美國高速公路所撒鹽量約達2千萬噸。這種氯化鈉可融冰、防止冰形成的方法有助於阻止事故發生。但是路面撒鹽也有其弊端。“這種方法並不經濟，因 為鹽有腐蝕作用。”Seda Kizilel是土耳其伊斯坦堡科克大學的化學工程師。她說，鹽類的腐蝕作用不容忽視——會影響車輛、大自然、植物和微生物。

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.
所以Kizilel和同事們設計了一條可以自融冰的公路。公路的原料是一種多聚酯叫做SBS，通常用作添加在瀝青中作為增強劑。Kizilel和同事們將 SBS乳狀物和甲酸鉀混合攪拌。其中甲酸鉀是一種對環境影響較小的融冰劑替代物。然後她們把這種乳狀物添加到柏油中——一種瀝青中的黑色粘性物質。

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.
她們又把這種添加乳狀物和沒添加的瀝青都放入一個在冬季天氣環境條件下進行了試驗。結果顯示，混合過後的複合物比無添加的對照組把形成冰的時間延遲了10 分鐘。並且試驗樣本中的混合材料在未來長達2個月的時間裡還能夠不間斷的釋放出鹽類。該研究已發表在《工業與工程化學研究》雜誌上。

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.
當然啦，將冰的形成時間延長10分鐘，是一個良好的開始——但是這並不意味著融冰撒鹽的卡車司機即將面臨失業下崗。我們是說在這開始的10到15分鐘，當 路面變得非常冰冷的時候，這種功能性瀝青材料以及從中釋放出的鹽類就能有效消除許多路上事故。下一步，她說，就是要鋪在一小塊路面上並在上面開車進行實際 測驗一下——為了真實的看看當橡膠與路面親密接觸的時候到底會發生什麼事。