雅思阅读机经真题解析：滑石粉

雅思阅读机经真题解析：滑石粉

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雅思阅读机经真题解析

滑石粉

Talc Powder

A Peter Brigg discovers how talc from Luzenacs Trimouns in

France find its way into food and agricultural products - from

chewing gum to olive oil. High in the French Pyrenees, some

1,700m above sea level, lies Trimouns, a huge deposit of hydrated

magnesium silicate - talc to you and me. Talc from Trimouns, and

from ten other Luzenac mines across the globe, is used in the

manufacture of a vast array of everyday products extending from

paper, paint and plaster to cosmetics, plastics and car tyres. And of

course there is always talcs best known end use: talcum powder for

babies1 bottoms. But the true versatility of this remarkable mineral

is nowhere better displayed than in its sometimes surprising use in

certain niche markets in the food and agriculture industries.

B Take, for example, the chewing gum business. Every year,

Talc de Luzenac France - which owns and operates the Trimouns

mine and is a member of the international Luzenac Group (art of

Rio Tinto minerals) supplies about 6,000 tones of talc to chewing

gum manufacturers in Europe.

the market since the 1960s,

in Luzenacs Specialties business unit in Toulouse.

terms of our total annual sales of talc, the amount we supply to

chewing gum manufacturers is relatively small, but we see it as a

valuable niche market: one where customers place a premium on

securing supplies from a reliable, high quality source. Because of

this, long term allegiance to a proven suppler is very much a feature

of this sector of die talc market.

you might choose to buy, say, paperclips from Supplier A rather

than from Supplier B - is not an easy option for chewing gum

manufacturers.

when customers are using a talc grade that works, even if its

expensive, they are understandably reluctant to switch.

C But how is talc actually used in the manufacture of chewing

gum? Patrick Delord, an engineer with a degree in agronomics, who

has been with Luzenac for 22 years and is now senior market

development manager, Agriculture and Food, in Europe, explains

that chewing gums has four main components.

important of them is the gum base,

puts the chew into chewing gum. It binds all the ingredients

together, creating a soft, smooth texture. To this the manufacturer

then adds sweeteners, softeners and flavourings. Our talc is used as

a filler in the gum base. The amount vanes between, say, ten and 35

per cent, depending on the type of gum. Fruit flavoured chewing

gum, for example, is slightly acidic and would react with the calcium

carbonate that the manufacturer might otherwise use as a filler.

Talc, on the other hand, makes an ideal filler because its

non-reactive chemically. In the factory, talc is also used to dust the

gum base pellets and to stop the chewing gum sticking during the

lamination and packing process,

D The chewing gum business is, however, just one example of

talcs use in the food sector. For the past 20 years or so, olive oil

processors in Spain have been taking advantage of talcs unique

characteristics to help them boost the amount of oil they extract

from crushed olives According to Patrick Delord, talc is especially

useful for treating what he calls

are harvested - preferably early in the morning because their taste

is better if they are gathered in the cool of the day they are taken to

the processing plant. There they arc crushed and then stirred for

30-45 minutes. In the old days, the resulting paste was passed

through an olive press but nowadays its more common to add

water and (K-6IH) the mixture to separate the water and oil from

the solid matter The oil and water are then allowed to settle so that

the olive oil layer can be )and bottled. “Difficult” olives are those

that are more reluctant than the norm to yield up their full oil

content. This may be attributable to the particular species of olive,

or to its water content and the time of year the olives arc collected

- at the beginning and the end of the season their water content is

often either too high or too low. These olives are easy to recognize

because they produce a lot of extra foam during the stirring process,

a consequence of an excess of a fine solid that acts as a natural

emulsifier. The oil in this emulsion is lost when the water is

disposed of. Not only that, if the waste water is disposed of directly

into local fields - often the case in many smaller processing

operations - the emulsified oil may take some time to biodegrade

and so be harmful to the environment.

E

during the stirring process, it absorbs the natural emulsifier in the

olives and so boosts the amount of oil you can extract,

oil droplets liberated during stirring, which again improves the yield.