If you see a person carelessly throwing a cigarette to the ground,what are you likely to think? That depends. If you hate people throwing things on the ground, you might think,“That person should not litter. ” If you are a smoker, you might think, “ I would sure like a cigarette right now. ” Most likely, though, you are not thinking, “ You know, that unused cigarette butt could be used to make something, something amazing! ”

如果你看到一个人不经意地扔了一个烟头，你会怎么想呢？那可真是仁者见仁，智者见智。如果你讨厌随地乱扔东西，你可能会想：那个人不应该乱丢垃圾。但如果你是烟民，你可能会想：我现在真想来一根。不过，大多数情况下，你可能不会想：你要知道，这没用的烟头很有可能被用来制成某种非常神奇的东西。

That is, unless you are a creative scientist. If you are, you may see a possibility where others simply see trash. That is just what has happened in South Korea. The spirit of invention can hit at the strangest times and in the most unusual places. In South Korea, it happened near a trash can.

事实是这样的，除非你是一个有创造力的科学家。如果你是，你就可能从别人眼里的垃圾中看出可能性。这正是在韩国发生的情况。发明创造的灵光常常出现在最奇异的时刻以及最不寻常的地方。在韩国，它就出现在垃圾桶旁边。

Kim Gil-Pyo is with Seoul National University. Mr. Kim says he saw people throwing away cigarette butts. And that got him thinking. He began wondering if something useful could be made from them. The result? Mr.Kim and other researchers found a way to turn cigarette butts into the materials required for high-performance batteries. We often say, “ One person's trash is another person's treasure. ” And in this example, this is unquestionably true.

金吉彪就职于首尔国立大学。金先生表示，他看到人们扔烟头，这给了他灵感。他开始设想，如果一些有用的东西可以从烟头里获得的话，会是什么样的结果呢？金先生和其他研究人员发现了一种能将烟头转化成高性能电池所需材料的方法。我们常说：“一个人的垃圾是另一个人的财富。”在这个例子中，这无疑是正确的。

Kim Gil-Pyo says he and his fellow researchers looked closely at used cigarette filters. The filter is the part of the cigarette that smokers put into their mouths. Mr. Kim explains that the filters can be made into another material: carbon. He says the filters are changed through a one-step burning process. After this, he says, they are turned into an energy storage material.

据金吉彪说，他和研究团队的成员们仔细观察了已抽过的香烟过滤嘴。过滤嘴是吸烟者放进嘴里的部分。金先生解释说，过滤嘴可变成另一种材料：碳。他说，过滤嘴只需通过燃烧这一个步骤就可发生改变，并被转换为储能材料。

Carbon has many qualities that seem to make it the perfect material. Carbon can easily carry an electrical current. It also stays stable, unlikely to change, for a long time. And carbon does not cost a lot. All these qualities make it the most popular material for making super-capacitors.

碳的许多优点似乎能使其成为最完美的材料。碳可以轻松地传导电流，同时也很稳定，在很长的一段时间内不会发生改变，而且成本极低。所有的这些优点使碳成为制造超级电容器最常用的材料。

Super-capacitors are good at storing energy. They have high-powered mass. They require only a short time for re-charging. And they have a long lifecycle. Super-capacitors are used in products such as laptop computers and cell phones. They are also used in industrial energy converters, like wind turbine machines. Combining carbon and super-capacitors seems like a perfect marriage.

超级电容器能极好地储存能量。它们有很高的功率密度，仅需极短的时间充电，有很长的使用寿命。超级电容器可用在笔记本电脑和手机这样的产品中，还可用在风力发电机这样的工业能源转换器中。碳和超级电容器的结合似乎非常完美。

Mr. Kim says that cigarette butts could affect the economy in a huge way. They could prove to be a low-cost source of carbon material. They are so cheap that smokers throw them on the ground, and you don't get much cheaper than that.

金先生表示，烟头可能会对经济产生极大的影响。它们有可能被证明是一种低成本的碳源物质。它们如此便宜，以至于被吸烟者扔到地上，而你再也找不到比这更便宜的东西了。