《化学工程与工艺专业英语》课文翻译(11)

（3) Process improvement. Process improvement relates to processes which are already operating. It may be a problem that has arisen and stopped production. In this situation there is a lot of pressure to find a solution as soon as possible so that production can restart, since down time‘ costs money.

（3）工艺改进。工艺改进与正在进行的工艺有关。它可能出现了某个问题使生产停止。在这种情形下，就面临着很大的压力要尽快地解决问题以便生产重新开始，因为故障期耗费资财。

down time: 故障期

More commonly, however, process improvement will be directed at improving the profitability of the process. This might be achieved in a number of ways. For example, improving the yield by optimizing the process, increasing the capacity by introducing a new catalyst, or lowering the energy requirements of the process. An example of the latter was the introduction of turbo compressors in the production of ammonia by the Haber process. This reduced utility costs (mainly electricity) from $6.66 to %0.56 per ton of ammonia produced. Improving the quality of the product, by process modification, may lead to new markets for the product.

然而，更为常见的，工艺改进是为了提高生产过程的利润。这可以通过很多途径实现。例如通过优化流程提高产量，引进新的催化剂提高效能，或降低生产过程所需要的能量。可说明后者的一个例子是在生产氨的过程中涡轮压缩机的引进。这使生产氨的成本（主要是电）从每吨6.66美元下降到0.56美元。通过工艺的改善提高产品质量也会为产品打开新的市场。

In recent years, however, the most important process improvement activity has been to reduce the environmental impact of the process, i.e., to prevent the process causing any pollution. Clearly there have been two interlinked driving forces for this. Firstly, the public‘s concern about the safety of chemicals and their effect on the environment, and the legislation which has followed as a result of this. Secondly the cost to the manufacturer of having to treat waste (i.e., material which cannot be recovered and used r sold) so that it can be safely disposed of, say by pumping into a river. This obviously represents a charge on the process which will increase the cost of the chemical being made. The potential for improvement by reducing the amount of waste is self-evident.

然而，近年来，最重要的工艺改进行为主要是减少生产过程对环境的影响，亦即防止生产过程所引起的污染。很明显，有两个相关连的因素推动这样做。第一，公众对化学产品的安全性及其对环境所产生影响的关注以及由此而制订出来的法律；第二，生产者必须花钱对废物进行处理以便它能安全地清除，比如说，排放到河水中。显然这是生产过程的又一笔费用，它将增加所生产化学产品的成本。通过减少废物数量提高效益其潜能是不言而喻的。

Note, however, with a plant which has already been built and is operating there are usually only very limited physical changes which can be made to the plant to achieve the above aims. Hence the importance, already mentioned, of eliminating waste production at the design stage of a new plant. Conserving energy and thus reducing energy cost has been another major preoccupation in recent years.

然而，请注意，对于一个已经建好并正在运行的工厂来说，只能做一些有限的改变来达到上述目的。因此，上面所提到的减少废品的重要性应在新公厂的设计阶段加以考虑。近年来另一个当务之急是保护能源及降低能源消耗。