Spill Some Oil? Magnetize It for Cleanup
用吸铁石对付原油泄漏
A physicist may have dreamed up a new way to clean up oil spills. David Biello reports
如何清理海上泄漏的石油呢？一位物理学家给出了他的奇思妙想。
播音/撰文：戴维•别洛
翻译：吴东远
校对：靳淞茹
Oil and water don't mix. Despite that age-old axiom, it sure is hard to get spilled petroleum out of seawater, as was evident during BP's blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. But what if you could make oil magnetic?
谁都知道油与水不互溶，但尽管如此，英国石油公司在墨西哥湾的井喷漏油事故还是证明了，从海水中分离出石油实在很难。不过如果你能将油磁化，又会怎样呢？
That thought came to physicist Arden Warner while he watched coverage of the spill back in 2010. And it launched some garage tinkering for Warner, who by day works on improving particle accelerators at Fermilab.
物理学家雅顿•华纳（Arden Warner）想到了这个点子，当时是2010年，他正在看新闻报道原油泄漏。他白天的工作是在费米实验室改进粒子加速器。为了验证猜想，华纳在车库中开始了试验。
He shaved iron bits from a shovel and sprinkled them atop some engine oil. Lo and behold, a refrigerator magnet pulled the blob of oil wherever he wanted. Now he's got a patent on the concept that he’s refined over the past few years.
他从铁铲上刮下来一些铁屑，并将其洒在了机油上。哟，你瞧！一块冰箱磁铁可以把机油随心所欲移动。他手拿一块从冰箱上拆下来的吸铁石，把机油吸来来去！之后的几年里，他将此理念做了细化改善，目前已经申请了专利。
The Warner method requires only a relatively small amount of magnetic metal dust. And the iron particles mix better with oil than with water, or with anything else the oil might get on, like bird feathers or plants.
华纳的方法只需要少量的磁性金属粉末。此外，比起水，以及其它油能吸附的材料，如鸟的羽毛或植物，铁微粒与油更容易混合。
Another plus: once the oil is collected, the filings can be dried off and reused. And iron is more environmentally friendly than the chemicals currently used to disperse oil. So maybe next time there's an oil spill—and there will be a next time—we can clean up the mess with magnets.
还有一点好处是：一旦收集好了油，铁屑可以被烘干并被循环使用，并且铁比分离油用的化学物质更环保。因此，如果再次出现了原油泄漏事故——总会出现的——我们就可以用吸铁石来对付原油泄漏了。
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