News tagged with oxidation
New silicon memory chip developed
(Phys.org) -- The first purely silicon oxide-based 'Resistive RAM' memory chip that can operate in ambient conditions opening up the possibility of new super-fast memory - has been developed by researchers ...
May 18, 2012 |
4.7 / 5 (32) |
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Laser sparks revolution in internal combustion engines
For more than 150 years, spark plugs have powered internal combustion engines. Automakers are now one step closer to being able to replace this long-standing technology with laser igniters, which will enable cleaner, more ...
Apr 20, 2011 |
4.7 / 5 (27) |
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New small solid oxide fuel cell reaches record efficiency
Individual homes and entire neighborhoods could be powered with a new, small-scale solid oxide fuel cell system that achieves up to 57 percent efficiency, significantly higher than the 30 to 50 percent efficiencies ...
Technology / Energy & Green Tech
May 31, 2012 |
4.7 / 5 (26) |
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New finding may hold key to Gaia hypothesis of Earth as living organism
(Phys.org) -- Is Earth really a sort of giant living organism as the Gaia hypothesis predicts? A new discovery made at the University of Maryland may provide a key to answering this question. This key of sulfur ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
May 15, 2012 |
3.4 / 5 (33) |
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Nanotrees harvest the sun's energy to turn water into hydrogen fuel
(PhysOrg.com) -- University of California, San Diego electrical engineers are building a forest of tiny nanowire trees in order to cleanly capture solar energy without using fossil fuels and harvest it for ...
Mar 07, 2012 |
5 / 5 (21) |
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A new kind of metal in the deep Earth
(PhysOrg.com) -- The crushing pressures and intense temperatures in Earth's deep interior squeeze atoms and electrons so closely together that they interact very differently. With depth materials change. New ...
Dec 19, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (21) |
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Pee power: Urine-loving bug churns out space fuel
Scientists on Sunday said they had gained insights into a remarkable bacterium that lives without oxygen and transforms ammonium, the ingredient of urine, into hydrazine, a rocket fuel.
Oct 02, 2011 |
4.8 / 5 (18) |
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A simple slice of energy storage
Turning graphite oxide (GO) into full-fledged supercapacitors turns out to be simple. But until a laboratory at Rice University figured out how, it was anything but obvious.
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
Aug 01, 2011 |
4.5 / 5 (19) |
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Novel solar reactor may enable clean fuel derived from sunlight
Producing hydrogen from non-fossil fuel sources is a problem that continues to elude many scientists but University of Delawares Erik Koepf thinks he may have discovered a solution.
Technology / Energy & Green Tech
Apr 04, 2012 |
4.3 / 5 (18) |
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Physicists discover 'magnetotoroidic effect'
(PhysOrg.com) -- For many years, scientists have known about the magnetoelectric effect, in which an electric field can induce and control a magnetic field, and vice versa. In this effect, the electric field has always been ...
Quantum dot LEDs get brighter, more efficient
(Phys.org) -- While quantum dot-based light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) are not made of organic materials, they share many of the same advantages as organic LEDs (OLEDs). For instance, both QLEDs and OLEDs outshine ...
Scientists looking to burst the superconductivity bubble
(PhysOrg.com) -- Bubbles are blocking the current path of one of the most promising high temperature superconducting materials, new research suggests.
May 16, 2011 |
5 / 5 (13) |
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Want fuel cells? Think outside the hydrogen tank
(PhysOrg.com) -- When most people hear the words "fuel cell," they think of eco-friendly, hydrogen-powered cars that emit nothing more than water.
Technology / Energy & Green Tech
Nov 18, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (13) |
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Energy storage device fabricated on a nanowire array
In a vivid demonstration of the progress being made in miniaturizing energy storage devices, a team of engineers from Rice University in Houston, Texas, has fabricated an energy storage device where all essential ...
3-D nanocone solar cell technology cranks up efficiency
(PhysOrg.com) -- With the creation of a 3-D nanocone-based solar cell platform, a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Jun Xu has boosted the light-to-power conversion efficiency of photovoltaics by ...
Apr 29, 2011 |
4.7 / 5 (13) |
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Redox
Redox (shorthand for reduction-oxidation reaction) describes all chemical reactions in which atoms have their oxidation number (oxidation state) changed. This can be either a simple redox process such as the oxidation of carbon to yield carbon dioxide or the reduction of carbon by hydrogen to yield methane (CH4), or it can be a complex process such as the oxidation of sugar in the human body through a series of very complex electron transfer processes.
The term redox comes from the two concepts of reduction and oxidation. It can be explained in simple terms:
Though sufficient for many purposes, these descriptions are not precisely correct. Oxidation and reduction properly refer to a change in oxidation number — the actual transfer of electrons may never occur. Thus, oxidation is better defined as an increase in oxidation number, and reduction as a decrease in oxidation number. In practice, the transfer of electrons will always cause a change in oxidation number, but there are many reactions that are classed as "redox" even though no electron transfer occurs (such as those involving covalent bonds).
Non-redox reactions, which do not involve changes in formal charge, are known as metathesis reactions.
For more information about Redox, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.