News tagged with hydrocarbon

Hydrocarbons in the deep Earth?

The oil and gas that fuels our homes and cars started out as living organisms that died, were compressed, and heated under heavy layers of sediments in the Earth's crust. Scientists have debated for years ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jul 26, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (43) | comments 27

5 Sources of Alternative Energy You May Not Have Heard Of

(PhysOrg.com) -- As fossil fuels increasingly fall out of favor, many are looking into alternative energy sources to help us power our lives with a smaller impact on the environment. You already know about ...

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created Feb 04, 2010 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (37) | comments 17 | with audio podcast weblog

Life Without Water?

On Saturn’s giant moon Titan, it is so cold that water is frozen as hard as granite. And yet there is a complete liquid cycle of methane and ethane. Scientists wonder whether there could also be life.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Mar 18, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (22) | comments 12 | with audio podcast

Easing Atmospheric CO2 Levels Using Nanotubes and Sunlight

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at The Pennsylvania State University have determined a way to use arrays of nanotubes in a solar-based process to convert carbon dioxide and water into methane and other hydrocarbon ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Feb 16, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (23) | comments 32 feature

Busy microbial world discovered in deepest ocean crust ever explored

The first study to ever explore biological activity in the deepest layer of ocean crust has found bacteria with a remarkable range of capabilities, including eating hydrocarbons and natural gas, and "fixing" ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 19, 2010 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (17) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Glint of Sunlight Confirms Liquid in Northern Lake District of Titan

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Cassini Spacecraft has captured the first flash of sunlight reflected off a lake on Saturn's moon Titan, confirming the presence of liquid on the part of the moon dotted with many large, ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 17, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (14) | comments 0

Titan's lakes could be explored by boat

(PhysOrg.com) -- If a suggestion to be made to NASA comes to fruition, vast lakes thought to be filled with liquid hydrocarbons near the north pole of Saturn's moon Titan, may one day be explored by boat.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 22, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (15) | comments 1 weblog

New catalyst for safe, reversible hydrogen storage

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators have developed a new catalyst that reversibly converts hydrogen gas and carbon dioxide to a liquid under very mild conditions. ...

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Mar 18, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (15) | comments 34 | with audio podcast

Subterranean oceans on Saturn's moon Titan

(PhysOrg.com) -- Saturn's largest moon, Titan, may have a subterranean ocean of hydrocarbons and some topsy-turvy topography in which the summits of its mountains lie lower than its average surface elevation, ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 06, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (16) | comments 7

Cassini Finds Hydrocarbon Rains May Fill Titan Lakes

(PhysOrg.com) -- A region on Saturn's moon Titan's southern latitudes appears to have been flooded by a summer cloudburst of hydrocarbon rain, as seen in images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft taken before ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jan 30, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (14) | comments 0

Borexino experiment detects geo-neutrinos

(PhysOrg.com) -- The Borexino collaboration of about 80 scientists from six countries, who have been working with a detector buried 1.5 km beneath the Gran Sasso mountain near l'Aquila in Italy have detected ...

Physics / General Physics

created Mar 16, 2010 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (15) | comments 3 | with audio podcast report

Hydrocarbon superconductor created

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists from Okayama University in Japan have discovered that the hydrocarbon picene can be made to superconduct when potassium atoms are interspersed with the picene crystals and the doped ...

Physics / Superconductivity

created Mar 10, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (13) | comments 6 | with audio podcast report

New evidence for complex molecules on Pluto's surface

(PhysOrg.com) -- The new and highly sensitive Cosmic Origins Spectrograph aboard the Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a strong ultraviolet-wavelength absorber on Pluto's surface, providing new evidence ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 20, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (12) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Study confirms oil from Deepwater Horizon disaster entered food chain in the Gulf of Mexico

Since the explosion on the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, scientists have been working to understand the impact that this disaster has had on the environment. For ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Mar 20, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (13) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

New Biofuel Technique Could Have Huge Impact on Chemical Industry

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new method of converting biomass feedstock into sustainable fuel developed by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and University of Minnesota has the potential to have a profound effect ...

Chemistry / Other

created Apr 21, 2010 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (11) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Hydrocarbon

In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. With relation to chemical terminology, aromatic hydrocarbons or arenes, alkanes, alkenes and alkyne-based compounds composed entirely of carbon or hydrogen are referred to as "pure" hydrocarbons, whereas other hydrocarbons with bonded compounds or impurities of sulfur or nitrogen, are referred to as "impure", and remain somewhat erroneously referred to as hydrocarbons.

Hydrocarbons are referred to as consisting of a "backbone" or "skeleton" composed entirely of carbon and hydrogen and other bonded compounds, and have a functional group that generally facilitates combustion.

The majority of hydrocarbons found naturally occur in crude oil, where decomposed organic matter provides an abundance of carbon and hydrogen which, when bonded, can catenate to form seemingly limitless chains.

For more information about Hydrocarbon, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.