科學(xué)家們發(fā)現(xiàn)了對抗塑料垃圾的新方法

科學(xué)家們發(fā)現(xiàn)了對抗塑料垃圾的新方法

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) scientist Gregg Beckham is an avid scuba diver. So he’s seen the problem of plastics in the world’s oceans firsthand.

美國國家可再生能源實驗室(NREL)科學(xué)家格雷格·貝克漢姆是一位狂熱的潛水愛好者。所以他親眼目睹了世界海洋中的塑料問題。

“I’ve been going to some places fairly frequently for the last 15 or so years,” he said, “and the prevalence of plastics that I’ve observed anecdotally in the ocean has certainly increased at least in the places that I frequent.”

“在過去的15年左右，我經(jīng)常去一些地方，”他說，“而且，我在海洋中所觀察到的塑料垃圾越來越多，至少在我經(jīng)常去的地方是這樣。”

Beckham’s sorrow about the situation has turned into a drive to make a difference. “It’s something that as a scientist and an engineer I’m very motivated to start working on it to see if we can come up with solutions to fix this big problem.”

貝克漢姆對現(xiàn)狀的悲傷已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)化為一種改變現(xiàn)狀的動力。“作為一名科學(xué)家和工程師，我非常有動力開始研究這個問題，看看我們能否找到解決這個大問題的辦法。”

The problem is massive, according to Nick Mallos, Director of The Ocean Conservancy’s Trash Free Seas Program. Said Mallos: “We know that 8 million metric tons of plastic enters the ocean every year. To put that into perspective that is roughly a New York City dump truck full of plastic emptying into the ocean every minute of every day for an entire year.”

海洋保護(hù)協(xié)會無垃圾海洋項目主任尼克·馬洛斯表示，這個問題非常嚴(yán)重。馬洛斯說:“我們知道每年有800萬噸塑料進(jìn)入海洋。從這個角度來看，這大概是一輛紐約市的自卸車，裝滿塑料，每天每分鐘都排入大海，持續(xù)了整整一年。”

In an effort to help, Beckham and his teams have been trying to find ways to make discarded PET plastic, the kind used in bottles, containers and polyester, more valuable to recycle, thus giving people a reason to keep it out of landfills and waterways in the first place.

為了提供幫助，貝克漢姆和他的團(tuán)隊一直在努力尋找方法，讓廢棄的PET塑料(用于瓶子、容器和聚酯纖維)更有價值地回收利用，從而讓人們有理由把它們放在垃圾填埋場和水道之外。

“You don’t find many aluminum cans in the ocean because there’s a good way to recycle aluminum,” points out NREL Director Martin Keller. “It’s an established, very well-developed method. So we need the same type of recycling method for plastic.”

NREL主管MartinKeller指出：“在海洋中，你找不到很多鋁罐，因為有一種回收鋁的好方法。”“這是一種既定的、非常成熟的方法。所以我們需要同樣的塑料回收方法。”

One breakthrough came as a pleasant surprise while Beckham and colleagues worked with researchers in London. They were studying the structure of an enzyme in a bacteria that was found to be eating plastic outside a bottle recycling plant in Japan.

當(dāng)貝克漢姆和他的同事與倫敦的研究人員一起工作時，一項突破性進(jìn)展讓他們驚喜不已。他們正在研究一種細(xì)菌的一種酶的結(jié)構(gòu)，這種細(xì)菌在日本一家瓶子回收廠外“吃”塑料。

“We thought we were gonna make the enzyme worse and in doing so understand how it evolved to break down plastic,” Beckham explained. “We actually accidentally made it better, which was pretty exciting.”

貝克漢姆解釋說:“我們認(rèn)為我們會使這種酶變得更糟，這樣我們就能理解它是如何進(jìn)化來分解塑料的。”“我們實際上是意外地把它做得更好，這非常令人興奮。”

In nature, the enzyme takes centuries to degrade PET plastic. Beckham said the mutated enzyme now does the work in weeks or months, “And we’re working to make it where we can actually get it down to days, which will be really exciting.”

在自然界中，這種酶需要幾個世紀(jì)才能降解PET塑料。貝克漢姆說，這種突變酶現(xiàn)在只需幾周或幾個月就能完成這項工作，“我們正在努力使它能在幾天內(nèi)完成，這將非常令人興奮。”

A second big breakthrough involves taking ground-up plastic bottles and mixing them with a biodegradable substance found in plants. “When we combine those in a very specific way, we can make a completely new type of plastic material that’s like a composite.”

第二個重大突破是將粉碎的塑料瓶與植物中發(fā)現(xiàn)的可生物降解物質(zhì)混合。“當(dāng)我們以一種非常特殊的方式把它們結(jié)合起來，我們就能制造出一種全新的塑料材料，就像一種復(fù)合材料。”

It’s the same kind of composite material already being added to fiberglass to make things like surfboards, snowboards, car parts and wind turbine blades.

這種復(fù)合材料已經(jīng)被添加到玻璃纖維中，用于制造沖浪板、滑雪板、汽車零部件和風(fēng)力渦輪機(jī)葉片。

Nick Rorrer is a postdoctoral researcher at NREL who’s involved in the research. “One of the awesome things about our work,” he said, “is we found that when we used both PET bottles and stuff that you get from biomass, you actually get better properties than what you would get using the typical kind of petroleum recipes for the manufacturing.”

NickRorrer是NREL的博士后研究員，他參與了這項研究。他說：“我們工作中最棒的一件事是，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，當(dāng)我們同時使用PET瓶和從生物質(zhì)中獲得的原料時，實際上你得到的性能比使用典型的石油配方制造的產(chǎn)品要好。”

The result is something not only much stronger than today’s oil-based material but lighter, too.

其結(jié)果不僅比現(xiàn)在的油基材料更堅固，而且也更輕。

The hope, Beckham said, is that scientific breakthroughs like these will make plastic much likely to be reused.

貝克漢姆說，希望像這樣的科學(xué)突破能讓塑料更容易被再利用。

Mallos said the research is exciting. “Finding new materials or new approaches to break down plastics or recycle plastics is absolutely a piece of the puzzle.” He cautioned, however, that “it’s critical that we don’t place too much weight in any one solution. We need a comprehensive approach to solve this problem globally.”

馬洛斯說，這項研究令人興奮。“找到新材料或新方法來分解塑料或回收塑料絕對是一個難題。然而，他警告說，“關(guān)鍵是我們不能在任何一種解決方案中都放太多分量。”我們需要一個全面的方法來解決這個全球性的問題。”

“It’s one part of a multipart solution to overcoming this problem,” Beckham agreed. “Part of the solution has to be reduced use of, especially, single-use plastics around the world, as well as on top of that, both governments and industry coming together to put incentives in place to reclaim waste plastics.”

“這是克服這個問題的多部分解決方案的一部分，”貝克漢姆同意。“一部分解決方案是減少世界各地一次性塑料的使用，尤其是減少一次性塑料的使用。除此之外，各國政府和工業(yè)界都齊心協(xié)力，采取措施回收廢塑料。”

NREL plans to have a pilot program up and running within a couple of years that will break down a ton of PET plastic every day. The product will be used to make turbine blades at the National Wind Technology Center nearby.

NREL計劃在幾年內(nèi)啟動并運(yùn)行一個試驗項目，該項目將每天分解一噸PET塑料。該產(chǎn)品將用于在附近的國家風(fēng)能技術(shù)中心制造渦輪葉片。