由于锌的冶炼难度高,其冶炼技术在世界范围内出现较晚。我国虽是世界上较早掌握炼锌技术的国家,但近代西方炼锌技术后来居上,洋务派通过翻译西学书籍引进西方部分先进的技术知识,其中《金石识别》《宝藏兴焉》《矿学考质》三本译书对锌的冶炼技术有详细介绍。本文通过对上述三本译书的文本分析,厘清了近代西方传入中国的三种炼锌技术知识及其与中国传统炼锌技术知识的差异;通过梳理史料,还原了西式炼锌知识引入后在中国第一座西法炼锌厂——湖南水口山西法炼锌厂的应用及其技术选择;最后讨论了影响炼锌技术知识早期应用的若干因素。

China is the earlier country in the world to master zinc smelting technology, there is a record of zinc smelting technology in Tiangong Kaiwu in 1637. Since the 18th century, the zinc smelting technology in Europe had become more advanced than China, and there had been more popular British zinc smelting method, Belgian zinc smelting method and Silesian method. In the late 19th century, these technical knowledge began to be translated into China by the Translation Department of Kiangnan Arsenal. During this period, China had always applied the traditional method of zinc smelting. It was not until 1934, nearly half a century after the introduction of this knowledge, that the first zinc refinery using the Western method was built in China. The main questions to be investigated in this paper are the following: Through what medium was the knowledge of Western zinc refining introduced into China? What knowledge was introduced? Was those knowledge related to the first practical application of Western zinc refining technology in China? By analyzing the translated texts of the translations of Kiangnan Arsenal and sorting out the historical materials, it can be concluded that the three translated books, namely Jinshi Shibie, Baozang Xingyan, and Kuangxue Kaozhi, systematically introduced three kinds of zinc smelting technical knowledge popular in the West at that time, among which Baozang Xingyan is the most detailed and systematic. In terms of the efficiency of zinc refining, all three western technologies are more efficient than the traditional Chinese zinc refining technology. The article also provides a preliminary reconstruction of the application of those knowledge in the first Western-style zinc refinery in China, the Shuikoushan Western-style Zinc Refinery in Hunan province. Several attempts of western zinc refining had been made in Hunan, but all were unsuccessful. It was not until 1934 that Raoshi, the chief engineer of the Shuikoushan Western-style Zinc Refinery in Hunan, succeeded in realizing the Western method of zinc refining after a number of trials, and the technology he chose was the Belgian technology. The Shuikoushan Western-style Zinc Refinery has the following characteristics: Firstly, it has a very prominent feature of the localization in the practice of knowledge, compared with other industries that directly purchased foreign equipment, it was realized by choosing its own process and developing its own equipment on the basis of the enterprise's reference to the technical principles of the Western style. Secondly, there was a gap of about half a century between the importation of zinc refining knowledge and its industrial application, and the importation of knowledge did not produce immediate results, which was due to some complex reasons including China's well-established traditional zinc refining technological system, the market, and technical education, etc.This paper provides the first overview of Western zinc refining knowledge imported into China in the modern era, suggests for the first time that the earliest weatern technology to be successfully practiced in China was the Belgian zinc refining method, and discusses the process of technological selection of the Shuikoushan Western-style Zinc Refinery and the factors that influenced the implementation of the knowledge into practice.