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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
January 14, 2026
Jan. 12, 2026 Florida State University scientists have engineered a new crystal that forces atomic magnets to swirl into complex, repeating patterns. The effect comes from mixing two nearly identical compounds whose mismatched structures create magnetic tension ...
Jan. 9, 2026 Scientists in South Korea have discovered a way to make all-solid-state batteries safer and more powerful using inexpensive materials. Instead of adding costly metals, they redesigned the battery’s internal structure to help lithium ions move ...
Jan. 8, 2026 A team of physicists has discovered a surprisingly simple way to build nuclear clocks using tiny amounts of rare thorium. By electroplating thorium onto steel, they achieved the same results as years of work with delicate crystals — but far more ...
Jan. 8, 2026 Nearly everything in the universe is made of mysterious dark matter and dark energy, yet we can’t see either of them directly. Scientists are developing detectors so sensitive they can spot particle interactions that might occur once in years or ...
Jan. 7, 2026 Researchers have built a new platform that produces ultrashort UV-C laser pulses and detects them at room temperature using atom-thin materials. The light flashes last just femtoseconds and can be ...
Jan. 6, 2026 Scientists are learning to engineer light in rich, multidimensional ways that dramatically increase how much information a single photon can carry. This leap could make quantum communication more secure, quantum computers more efficient, and sensors ...
Jan. 6, 2026 A new chip-based quantum memory uses nanoprinted “light cages” to trap light inside atomic vapor, enabling fast, reliable storage of quantum information. The structures can be fabricated with extreme precision and filled with atoms in days ...
Jan. 5, 2026 Scientists have found a way to see ultrafast molecular interactions inside liquids using an extreme laser technique once thought impossible for fluids. When they mixed nearly identical chemicals, one combination behaved strangely—producing less ...
Jan. 4, 2026 Seeing plastic trash while hiking inspired a Rutgers chemist to rethink why synthetic plastics last forever while natural polymers don’t. By mimicking tiny structural features used in DNA and proteins, researchers designed plastics that remain ...
Jan. 3, 2026 Scientists have developed molecular devices that can switch roles, behaving as memory, logic, or learning elements within the same structure. The breakthrough comes from precise chemical design that ...
Jan. 2, 2026 A physicist has proposed a bold experiment that could allow gravitational waves to be manipulated using laser light. By transferring minute amounts of energy between light and gravity, the ...
Jan. 1, 2026 A new advance in bromine-based flow batteries could remove one of the biggest obstacles to long-lasting, affordable energy storage. Scientists developed a way to chemically capture corrosive bromine during battery operation, keeping its ...
Latest Headlines
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Jan. 13, 2026 At extreme pressures and temperatures, water becomes superionic — a solid that behaves partly like a liquid and conducts electricity. This unusual form is believed to shape the magnetic fields of ...
Jan. 12, 2026 Scientists at Fermilab’s MicroBooNE experiment have ruled out the existence of the elusive sterile neutrino, a particle proposed for decades to ...
Jan. 12, 2026 Scientists observing the red giant star R Doradus have found that starlight isn’t strong enough to drive its stellar winds, overturning a ...
Jan. 11, 2026 The accelerating expansion of the universe is usually explained by an invisible force known as dark energy. But a new study suggests this mysterious ...
Jan. 8, 2026 Einstein’s claim that the speed of light is constant has survived more than a century of scrutiny—but scientists are still daring to test it. Some theories of quantum gravity suggest light might ...
Jan. 8, 2026 When scientists repeatedly drove a strongly interacting quantum system with laser “kicks,” they expected it to heat up and grow chaotic. Instead, the atoms abruptly stopped absorbing energy and ...
Jan. 7, 2026 Researchers at TU Wien have discovered a quantum system where energy and mass move with perfect efficiency. In an ultracold gas of atoms confined to a single line, countless collisions occur—but ...
Jan. 5, 2026 Inside high-energy proton collisions, quarks and gluons briefly form a dense, boiling state before cooling into ordinary particles. Researchers expected this transition to change how disordered the ...
Jan. 4, 2026 Researchers using China’s “artificial sun” fusion reactor have broken through a long-standing density barrier in fusion plasma. The experiment ...
Jan. 3, 2026 Scientists have precisely measured two unstable atomic nuclei that play a crucial role in explosive X-ray bursts on neutron stars. The results reveal faster nuclear reactions than previously thought, ...