化學回收

[Kenny同志]

Folks,

 

If someone tries to recover precious metals from waste mobile phones and computers using a chemical process, can this be called chemical reclamation? Well, this is a term which appears in my translation textbook but I find it rather odd. But then again, I am not sure if it can be used in such a context. What are your thoughts?

 

Maybe chemical recovery is better? I know chemical extraction might be the best option but from some Google search results, it seems that chemical recovery is also a term in common use.

[xinoxanu]

Nuances and audience aside, both reclamation and recovery are exchangeable terms in this case. 

 

Does the process you are referring to only involve chemicals, such as some form of acid? Otherwise there's also recovery by "electrodeposition" or 电沉积 - but this process is more complex than simply using chemicals to separate plastic and metals.

[Kenny同志]

Many thanks for sharing your view on this, xinoxaunu. I very much appreciate it.

 

As a matter of fact, this is purely a language learning question. I am not quite familiar with the technical details involved. ?

[anonymoose]

我个人觉得recovery和reclamation都可以。然而，你说的chemical reclamation有点歧义，这个chemical是指回收的化学物质还是回收的化学性过程？英文里，这个要看上下文才能知道。

[Kenny同志]

Thanks for your feedback, Anonymoose. This is very helpful.

 

Yes, I did a bit of research before coming here. It seems that chemical reclamation often refers to the process of reclaiming land using chemicals. But I agree what those terms mean exactly depends a lot on the context.