Reference Terms
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Oil refinery
An oil refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into useful petroleum products. Raw oil or unprocessed ("crude") oil is not very useful in the form it comes in out of the ground. Oil needs to be separated into parts and refined before use in fuels and lubricants, and before some of the byproducts could be used in petrochemical processes to form materials such as plastics, and foams. Petroleum fossil fuels are used in ship, automobile and aircraft engines. These different hydrocarbons have different boiling points, which means they can be separated by distillation. Since the lighter liquid elements are in great demand for use in internal combustion engines, a modern refinery will convert heavy hydrocarbons and lighter gaseous elements into these higher value products using complex and energy intensive processes.
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Matter & Energy News
March 25, 2026
Mar. 24, 2026 Researchers have visualized atoms in motion just before a radiation-driven decay process occurs, revealing a surprisingly dynamic scene. Instead of remaining fixed, the atoms roam and rearrange, directly influencing how and when the decay unfolds. ...
Mar. 24, 2026 Scientists have found a clever way to supercharge ultra-thin semiconductors by reshaping the space beneath them rather than altering the material itself. By placing a single-atom-thick layer of tungsten disulfide over tiny air cavities carved into a ...
Mar. 22, 2026 Scientists in Australia have demonstrated a prototype quantum battery that could revolutionize energy storage. By harnessing quantum effects, it can absorb energy in a rapid “super absorption” event, enabling much faster charging than ...
Mar. 22, 2026 A decades-old superconducting mystery just took a surprising turn. Strontium ruthenate, a material that conducts electricity with zero resistance at low temperatures, has long puzzled scientists with hints of an exotic, complex superconducting ...
Mar. 21, 2026 A routine quantum optics technique just revealed an extraordinary secret: entangled light can carry incredibly complex topological structures. Researchers found these hidden patterns reach up to 48 dimensions, offering a vast new “alphabet” for ...
Mar. 20, 2026 Researchers have created a cutting-edge catalyst that turns CO2 into methanol more efficiently than ever before. Instead of using clumps of metal atoms, they engineered a system where each single indium atom actively drives the reaction. This ...
Mar. 17, 2026 MIT physicists have built a powerful new microscope that uses terahertz light to uncover hidden quantum motions inside superconductors. By compressing this normally unwieldy light into a tiny region, ...
Mar. 16, 2026 Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have uncovered a new way to manipulate unusual magnetic states by exploiting “frustration” inside a crystal’s atomic structure. The team discovered a rare system where two different kinds of ...
Mar. 16, 2026 Scientists have developed a powerful new computational method that could accelerate the search for next-generation materials capable of turning sunlight into useful chemical energy. The work focuses on polyheptazine imides, a promising class of ...
Mar. 13, 2026 Scientists are exploring a surprisingly simple way to clean up diesel engines: adding tiny droplets of water to the fuel. During combustion, the water rapidly vaporizes, triggering micro-explosions that improve fuel mixing and lower combustion ...
Mar. 10, 2026 Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have created a new aluminum alloy called RidgeAlloy that can turn contaminated car-body scrap into strong structural vehicle parts. Normally, impurities ...
Mar. 9, 2026 Scientists have found a way to significantly boost “blue energy,” which generates electricity from the mixing of saltwater and freshwater. By coating nanopores with lipid molecules that create a friction-reducing water layer, they enabled ions ...
Latest Headlines
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Mar. 25, 2026 A star you can see with the naked eye has kept astronomers guessing for decades with its unusually powerful X-rays. Now, thanks to highly precise observations from Japan’s XRISM space telescope, ...
Mar. 24, 2026 Astronomers have finally cracked a decades-old mystery about red giant stars—how material from their deep interiors makes its way to the surface. Using cutting-edge supercomputer simulations, ...
Mar. 23, 2026 Foams have long baffled scientists because liquid drains from them far sooner than theory predicts. New research shows the reason: the bubbles don’t stay put—they rearrange, opening pathways for ...
Mar. 22, 2026 Scientists have created a new kind of time crystal using sound waves to levitate tiny beads in mid-air. These particles interact in a one-sided, unbalanced way, breaking the usual rules of motion and ...
Mar. 22, 2026 Researchers have uncovered friction without contact—driven entirely by magnetic interactions. As two magnetic layers slide, their internal forces ...
Mar. 19, 2026 A new subatomic particle known as the Ξcc⁺ has been discovered at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. This heavy proton-like particle contains two ...
Mar. 16, 2026 Scientists studying a mysterious effect called cosmic birefringence—a subtle twist in the polarization of the universe’s oldest light—have ...
Mar. 14, 2026 Cambridge scientists have discovered a light-powered chemical reaction that lets researchers modify complex drug molecules at the final stages of ...
Mar. 13, 2026 Gold and other heavy elements are born in some of the universe’s most violent events—but scientists still struggle to understand the nuclear steps that create them. Now, nuclear physicists have ...
Mar. 10, 2026 More than a century before quantum mechanics was born, Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton stumbled onto an idea that would quietly foreshadow one of the deepest truths in physics. While ...