Fuel

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Fuel is any material that is burned or altered to obtain energy and to heat or to move an object. Fuel releases its energy either through a chemical reaction means, such as combustion, or nuclear means, such as nuclear fission or nuclear fusion. An important property of a useful fuel is that its energy can be stored to be released only when needed, and that the release is controlled in such a way that the energy can be harnessed to produce work. Examples: Methane, Petrol and Oil.

All carbon-based life forms—from microorganisms to animals and humans—depend on and use fuels as their source of energy. Their cells engage in an enzyme-mediated chemical process called metabolism that converts energy from food or light into a form that can be used to sustain life. Additionally, humans employ a variety of techniques to convert one form of energy into another, producing usable energy for purposes that go far beyond the energy needs of a human body. The application of energy released from fuels ranges from heat to cooking and from powering weapons to combustion and generation of electricity.

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


News tagged with fuel

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NREL Evaluates UPS Hybrid-Electric Van Performance

Technology / Energy

created 1hour ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has collected and analyzed fuel economy, maintenance and other vehicle performance data from UPS’s first generation hybrid diesel ...


Method makes refineries more efficient

Chemistry / Other

created 10 hours ago | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Refineries could trim millions of dollars in energy costs annually by using a new method developed at Purdue University to rearrange the distillation sequence needed to separate crude petroleum into products.


Nanoparticles go platinum: NCEM instruments provide key images

Nanoparticles go platinum: NCEM instruments provide key images

Nanotechnology / Nanophysics

created 23 hours ago | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0

At Berkeley Lab's National Center for Electron Microscopy it was revealed that single-stranded DNA can disperse bundles of single-walled carbon nanotubes into individual tubes and serve as guideposts for synthesizing ...


Molecular freight: Synthetic nanoscale transport system modeled on nature

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Dec 21, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Just like our roads, there is a lot of traffic within the cells in our bodies, because cell components, messenger molecules, and enzymes must also be brought to the right places in the cell. One of these ...





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German chip maker Infineon raises quarterly sales target

Technology / Business

created 7 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Long-suffering German semi-conductor maker Infineon raised its quarterly sales target Tuesday owing to stronger demand from clients in the automotive and energy sectors.


Smashing trash with solar power

Technology / Energy

created Dec 21, 2009 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (3) | comments 1

They seem to turn heads wherever they're installed: new solar-powered trash compactors that are meant to save time and energy.


Modern behavior of early humans found half-million years earlier than previously thought

Modern behavior of early humans found half-million years earlier than previously thought

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created 6 hours ago | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 0

Evidence of sophisticated, human behavior has been discovered by Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers as early as 750,000 years ago - some half a million years earlier than has previously been estimated ...


Argonne advanced battery research driving to displace gasoline

Argonne advanced battery research driving to displace gasoline (w/ Video)

Technology / Energy

created Dec 21, 2009 | popularity 3.5 / 5 (6) | comments 3

(PhysOrg.com) -- In excess of seven million barrels of gasoline are consumed by vehicles in the United States every day. As scientists race to find environmentally sound solutions to fuel the world’s ever-growing ...


Graphite oxide at high pressure opens a road to new amazing nano-materials

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Dec 21, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- New results by scientists at Umeľ University, Sweden, show that not only water but also alcohol solvents can be inserted to expand the structure of graphite oxide under high pressure conditions. The ...


Frederic Scheer, head of the plastics manufacturer Cereplast

Potatoes, algae replace oil in US company's plastics

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Dec 21, 2009 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (17) | comments 5

Frederic Scheer is biding his time, convinced that by 2013 the price of oil will be so high that his bio-plastics, made from vegetables and plants, will be highly marketable.


Brown dwarf pair mystifies astronomers

Brown dwarf pair mystifies astronomers

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 21, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (15) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Two brown dwarf-sized objects orbiting a giant old star show that planets may assemble around stars more quickly and efficiently than anyone thought possible, according to an international ...


Making New Enzymes to Engineer Plants for Biofuel Production

Making New Enzymes to Engineer Plants for Biofuel Production

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Dec 21, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Brookhaven scientists have created a new enzyme with the potential to interfere with a key cell-wall component in plants, possibly leading to plants that are easier to "digest" and convert ...


Swimming Bacteria Could Become Model for Micromachines

Swimming Bacteria Could Become Model for Micromachines

Physics / General Physics

created Dec 21, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- UConn researchers say Spiroplasma's propulsion style is optimal for converting energy into motion.


Intel Announces Next-Generation Atom Platform

Intel Announces Next-Generation Atom Platform (w/ Video)

Electronics / Hardware

created Dec 21, 2009 | popularity 3 / 5 (4) | comments 3

Intel Corporation announced new Intel Atom processors today that feature integrated graphics built directly into the CPU, enabling improved performance and smaller, more energy-efficient designs in a new generation ...



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