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
October 16, 2025
Oct. 11, 2025 — A team of engineers at North Carolina State University has designed a polymer “Chinese lantern” that can rapidly snap into multiple stable 3D shapes—including a lantern, a spinning top, and more—by compression or twisting. By adding a ...
Oct. 11, 2025 — Scientists have developed an ultra-thin, paper-like LED that emits a warm, sunlike glow, promising to revolutionize how we light up our homes, devices, and workplaces. By engineering a balance of red, yellow-green, and blue quantum dots, the ...
Oct. 10, 2025 — Scientists at EPFL have reimagined 3D printing by turning simple hydrogels into tough metals and ceramics. Their process allows multiple infusions of metal salts that form dense, high-strength structures without the porosity of earlier methods. ...
Oct. 8, 2025 — Researchers have found a way to extract almost every photon from diamond color centers, a key obstacle in quantum technology. Using hybrid nanoantennas, they precisely guided light from nanodiamonds into a single direction, achieving 80% efficiency ...
Oct. 8, 2025 — In a remarkable leap for quantum physics, researchers in Japan have uncovered how weak magnetic fields can reverse tiny electrical currents in kagome metals—quantum materials with a woven atomic structure that frustrates electrons into forming ...
Oct. 7, 2025 — An international team has confirmed that large quantum systems really do obey quantum mechanics. Using Bell’s test across 73 qubits, they proved the presence of genuine quantum correlations that can’t be explained classically. Their results show ...
Oct. 7, 2025 — Researchers at Columbia have created a chip that turns a single laser into a “frequency comb,” producing dozens of powerful light channels at once. Using a special locking mechanism to clean ...
Oct. 7, 2025 — Solar energy is now the cheapest source of power worldwide, driving a massive shift toward renewables. Falling battery prices and innovations in solar materials are making clean energy more reliable than ever. Yet, grid congestion and integration ...
Oct. 5, 2025 — A Penn State research team found that streetlights could double as affordable EV charging stations. After installing 23 units in Kansas City, they discovered these chargers were faster, cheaper, and more eco-friendly than traditional stations. Their ...
Oct. 4, 2025 — Scientists at OIST have, for the first time, directly tracked the elusive “dark excitons” inside atomically thin materials. These quantum particles could revolutionize information technology, as they are more stable and resistant to ...
Oct. 3, 2025 — Researchers have designed a new type of gravitational wave detector that operates in the milli-Hertz range, a region untouched by current observatories. Built with optical resonators and atomic clocks, the compact detectors can fit on a lab table ...
Oct. 2, 2025 — A team in Sweden has unraveled the hidden structure of a promising solar material using machine learning and advanced simulations. Their findings could unlock durable, ultra-efficient solar cells for ...
Latest Headlines
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Oct. 16, 2025 — Auburn scientists have designed new materials that manipulate free electrons to unlock groundbreaking applications. These “Surface Immobilized Electrides” could power future quantum computers or ...
Oct. 15, 2025 — Scientists at TU Wien have uncovered that quantum correlations can stabilize time crystals—structures that oscillate in time without an external driver. Contrary to previous assumptions, quantum ...
Oct. 15, 2025 — Researchers analyzing pulsar data have found tantalizing hints of ultra-slow gravitational waves. A team from Hirosaki University suggests these signals might carry “beats” — patterns formed by ...
Oct. 15, 2025 — Scientists at the University of Cambridge have uncovered a surprising quantum effect inside an organic material, something once thought impossible outside metals. The team found that a special ...
Oct. 14, 2025 — MIT researchers found that metals retain hidden atomic patterns once believed to vanish during manufacturing. These patterns arise from microscopic dislocations that guide atoms into preferred ...
Oct. 14, 2025 — New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope hint that the universe’s first stars might not have been ordinary fusion-powered suns, but enormous “supermassive dark stars” powered by ...
Oct. 13, 2025 — A team of international physicists has brought Bayes’ centuries-old probability rule into the quantum world. By applying the “principle of minimum change” — updating beliefs as little as ...
Oct. 13, 2025 — Scientists from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Caltech have finally solved a decades-old mystery about how photosynthesis really begins. They discovered why energy inside plants flows ...
Oct. 12, 2025 — Geophysicists have modeled how Earth’s magnetic field could form even when its core was fully liquid. By removing the effects of viscosity in their simulation, they revealed a self-sustaining ...
Oct. 12, 2025 — A team at the University at Buffalo has made it possible to simulate complex quantum systems without needing a supercomputer. By expanding the truncated Wigner approximation, they’ve created an ...