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Better living through chemurgy

机译：通过化学疗法更好地生活

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Forty years ago Dustin Hoffman's character in "The Graduate" was given a famous piece of career advice: "Just one word...plastics." It was appropriate at the time, given that the 1960s were a golden age of petrochemical innovation. Oil was cheap and seemed limitless. Since then, scientists have kept on coming up with wondrous new products made from petroleum that helped to ensure, in the words of one corporate slogan, better living through chemistry. Even so, someone offering advice to today's promising graduates might invoke a different, uglier word: chemurgy. This term, coined in the 1930s, refers to a branch of applied chemistry that turns agricultural feedstocks into industrial and consumer products. It had several successes early in the 20th century. Cellulose was used to make everything from paint brushes to the film on which motion pictures were captured. George Washington Carver, an American scientist, developed hundreds of ways to convert peanuts, sweet potatoes and other crops into glue, soaps, paints, dyes and other industrial products. In the 1930s Henry Ford started using parts made from agricultural materials, and even built an all-soy car. But the outbreak of the second world war and the shift to wartime production halted his experiment. After the war, low oil prices and breakthroughs in petrochemical technologies ensured the dominance of petro-rnleum-based plastics and chemicals.
机译：四十年前，达斯汀·霍夫曼（Dustin Hoffman）在《毕业生》中的角色得到了著名的职业建议：“一个字……塑料”。鉴于1960年代是石化创新的黄金时代，在当时是合适的。石油很便宜，而且似乎是无限的。从那时起，科学家一直在想出奇妙的石油新产品，用一种公司口号的话说，这些新产品有助于确保通过化学方法更好地生活。即便如此，向当今有前途的毕业生提供建议的人可能会调用一个不同的，更丑陋的词：化学疗法。这个术语在1930年代创造，指的是应用化学的一个分支，它将农业原料转化为工业和消费产品。在20世纪初，它取得了几项成功。纤维素被用来制作从油漆刷到电影胶片的所有东西。美国科学家乔治·华盛顿·卡佛（George Washington Carver）开发了数百种方法，将花生，甘薯和其他农作物转化为胶水，肥皂，油漆，染料和其他工业产品。 1930年代，亨利·福特（Henry Ford）开始使用由农业材料制成的零件，甚至制造了全大豆汽车。但是第二次世界大战的爆发和向战时生产的转移使他的实验停了下来。战后，低油价和石化技术的突破确保了石油-石油基塑料和化学品的主导地位。

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    《The economist》 |2008年第8586期|83-84|共2页
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