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Keeling, Charles David

(Encyclopedia)Keeling, Charles David, 1928–2005, U.S. geochemist, b. Scranton, Pa., Ph.D. Northwestern Univ., 1954. As a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology (1953–56), he developed a s...

carboxyl group

(Encyclopedia)carboxyl group kärbŏkˈsĭl [key], in chemistry, functional group that consists of a carbon atom joined to an oxygen atom by a double bond and to a hydroxyl group, OH, by a single bond. Carboxylic a...

water gas

(Encyclopedia)water gas, colorless poisonous gas that burns with an intensely hot, bluish (nearly colorless) flame. The gas is a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen with very small amounts of other gases, e.g.,...

producer gas

(Encyclopedia)producer gas, fuel gas consisting chiefly of carbon monoxide and nitrogen. It is prepared in a furnace or generator in which air is forced upward through a burning fuel of coal or coke. Although the f...

radiochemistry

(Encyclopedia)radiochemistry, chemistry of radioactive substances (see radioactivity). Radioactive isotopes are very useful as tracers to study the mechanisms of complex organic reactions, since even minute amounts...

Fischer-Tropsch process

(Encyclopedia)Fischer-Tropsch process fĭshˈər-trōpsh [key], method for the synthesis of hydrocarbons and other aliphatic compounds. Synthesis gas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, is reacted in the pr...

Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson

(Encyclopedia)Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson, 1828–1914, English chemist and physicist. He made an incandescent lamp using a carbon filament (1860), 20 years before Edison's lamp. Noted for important contributions to ph...

carbide

(Encyclopedia)carbide, any one of a group of compounds that contain carbon and one other element that is either a metal, boron, or silicon. Generally, a carbide is prepared by heating a metal, metal oxide, or metal...

solvent

(Encyclopedia)solvent, constituent of a solution that acts as a dissolving agent. In solutions of solids or gases in a liquid, the liquid is the solvent. In all other solutions (i.e., liquids in liquids or solids i...

nucleosynthesis

(Encyclopedia)nucleosynthesis or nucleogenesis, in astronomy, production of all the chemical elements from the simplest element, hydrogen, by thermonuclear reactions within stars, supernovas, and in the big bang at...