A
Above Ground Coal Gasification: The process of producing syngas–a mixture consisting primarily of carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H2), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and water vapour (H2O)–from coal and water, air and/or oxygen above ground.
Acyclic: A compound with a linear structure, rather than a cyclic one.
Adiabatic: Refers to any process that occurs without heat transfer.
Adiabatic Process: In thermodynamics, an adiabatic process is one that occurs without transfer of heat or matter between a thermodynamic system and its surroundings.
Alkane: An acyclic saturated hydrocarbon. In other words, an alkane consists of hydrogen and carbon atoms arranged in a tree structure in which all the carbon-carbon bonds are single.
Alternative Energy: Any energy source that is an alternative to fossil fuel. These alternatives are intended to address concerns about such fossil fuels.
Anachronistic: Something belonging to a period other than that being portrayed.
Anachronistic Bio-Carbon: Carbon belonging to a period other than that being portrayed that trees, plants and healthy soils naturally absorb and store.
Aquifer: An underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock, rock fractures or unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt) from which groundwater can be extracted using a water well.
Atmosphere: A layer of gases surrounding a planet or other material body, that is held in place by the gravity of that body.
Atom: The smallest constituent unit of ordinary matter that has the properties of a chemical element.
Atomic Nuclei: The small, dense region consisting of protons and neutrons at the center of an atom.
Atomic Number: The number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom.
B
Bio-Carbon: Carbon that trees, plants and healthy soils naturally absorb and store.
Biogas: A mixture of different gases produced by the breakdown of organic matter in the absence of oxygen.
C
Carbon: A chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds.It belongs to group 14 of periodic table.
Carbon Dioxide: A colorless gas with a density about 50% higher than that of dry air.
Carbon Dioxide: A colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that is slightly less dense than air.
Carnot Cycle: A theoretical thermodynamic cycle that provides an upper limit on the efficiency that any classical thermodynamic engine can achieve during the conversion of heat into work, or conversely, the efficiency of a refrigeration system in creating a temperature difference (e.g. refrigeration) by the application of work to the system.
Cellularized: Divided into separate cells or compartments.
Chemical Element: A species of atoms having the same number of protons in their atomic nuclei.
Chemical Reactivity: The impetus for which a chemical substance undergoes a chemical reaction, either by itself or with other materials, with an overall release of energy.
Coal: A combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams.
Combustion: The process of burning something.
D
Depth: A geometric setting in which three values (called parameters) are required to determine the position of an element.
E
Electric Charge: The physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field.
Electrochemical Reaction: Any process either caused or accompanied by the passage of an electric current and involving in most cases the transfer of electrons between two substances—one a solid and the other a liquid.
Electrolyte: A substance that produces an electrically conducting solution when dissolved in a polar solvent, such as water.
Electromagnetic Field: A physical field produced by electrically charged objects.
Electron: A stable subatomic particle with a charge of negative electricity, found in all atoms and acting as the primary carrier of electricity in solids.
Electrothermal: Relating to heat derived from electricity.
Elementary Charge: Usually denoted as e or sometimes q, is the electric charge carried by a single proton, or equivalently, the magnitude of the electric charge carried by a single electron, which has charge −e.
F
Feedstock Chemistry: Any unprocessed material used to supply a manufacturing process. Feedstocks are bottleneck assets because their availability determines the ability to make products.
Field: A physical quantity, represented by a number or tensor, that has a value for each point in space and time.
Fuel Cells: A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy from a fuel into electricity through an electrochemical reaction of hydrogen fuel with oxygen or another oxidizing agent.
G
Gas: One of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma).
Gasification: A process that converts organic- or fossil fuel-based carbonaceous materials into carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
Geometric: A branch of mathematics concerned with questions of shape, size, relative position of figures, and the properties of space.
Geometric Vector: A geometric object that has magnitude (or length) and direction. Sometimes called a Euclidean vector.
Greenhouse Gas: A gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range.
Group 14 Hydrides: Chemical compounds composed of hydrogen atoms and carbon group atoms (the elements of group 14 are carbon, silicon, germanium, tin, and lead).
H
Heat Transfer: A discipline of thermal engineering that concerns the generation, use, conversion, and exchange of thermal energy (heat) between physical systems.
Helium: A chemical element with symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas, the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table.
Hydrocarbon: An organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon, and thus are group 14 hydrides.
Hydrogen: A colorless, odorless, highly flammable gas, the chemical element of atomic number 1.
Hydrogen Sulfide: The chemical compound with the formula H2S. It is a colorless gas with the characteristic foul odor of rotten eggs.
I
Impetus: Source of motivation
In Situ: In its original place.
In Situ Coke Conversion: Onsite conversion of a fuel with few impurities and a high carbon content, usually made from coal.
Insitu Conversion of Stranded Anachronistic Bio-Carbon (ICSABC): Conversion of coal that that would otherwise be considered stranded in its original location.
Isothermal Process: An isothermal process is a change of a system, in which the temperature remains constant
Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC): Competing technologies derived from fossil fuels, coal, petroleum coke and other feedstocks used to produce electricity from gasification.
International System of Units: The modern form of the metric system, and is the most widely used system of measurement.
J
Joule: A derived unit of energy in the International System of Units.
K
Kilowatt: Equal to one thousand watts.
L
Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE): A measure of a power source which attempts to compare different methods of electricity generation on a consistent basis.
M
Matter: In the classical physics observed in everyday life, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume.
Megawatt: Equal to one million watts.
Methane: A chemical compound with the chemical formula CH4 (one atom of carbon and four atoms of hydrogen).
Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells (MCFC): MCFCs are high-temperature fuel cells that use an electrolyte composed of a molten carbonate salt mixture suspended in a porous, chemically inert ceramic matrix of beta-alumina solid electrolyte (BASE).
Monoatomic Gas: A combination of the words “mono” and “atomic”, and means “single atom”.
N
Nanometer: A unit of length in the metric system, equal to one billionth (short scale) of a meter.
Nanoscopic: Refers to structures with a length scale applicable to nanotechnology, usually cited as 1–100 nanometers.
Nanotechnology: The manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale.
Natural Gas: A naturally occurring hydrocarbon gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, but commonly including varying amounts of other higher alkanes, and sometimes a small percentage of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, or helium.
Neutron: A subatomic particle, symbol n or n0, with no net electric charge and a mass slightly larger than that of a proton.
Nitrogen: A chemical element with symbol N and atomic number 7.
Noble Gas: Make up a group of chemical elements with similar properties; under standard conditions, they are all odorless, colorless, monatomic gases with very low chemical reactivity.
O
Organic Compound: Virtually any chemical compound that contains carbon, although a consensus definition remains elusive and likely arbitrary.
Oxidant: A substance that has the ability to oxidize other substances — in other words to cause them to lose electrons.
P
Particle: A minute portion of matter.
Physical Quantity: Establishing quantitative structure and relationships between different quantities is the cornerstone of modern physical sciences.
Power: The rate of doing work, the amount of energy transferred per unit time.
Power Plant: An industrial facility for the generation of electric power.
Production Well: A well utilized to retrieve petroleum or gas from an underground deposit.
Proton: A subatomic particle, symbol p or p+, with a positive electric charge of +1e elementary charge and mass slightly less than that of a neutron.
Q
Quantitative Structure: Activity relationship models (QSAR models) are regression or classification models used in the chemical and biological sciences and engineering.
R
Rankine cycle: A model used to predict the performance of steam turbine systems.
Real Number: A value that represents a quantity along a line.
Reactor: An apparatus or structure in which fissile material can be made to undergo a controlled, self-sustaining nuclear reaction with the consequent release of energy.
Regression Model: Regression models involve the following parameters and variables: The unknown parameters (β) which may represent a scalar or a vector, the independent variables (X) and the dependent variable (Y).
S
Scalar: An element of a field, which is used to define a vector space, usually the field of real numbers.
Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC): An electrochemical conversion device that produces electricity directly from oxidizing a fuel.
Stranded Energy Carrier Extraction (SECE): A project of Casimir LLC that created a proprietary process technology ICSABC that liberates energy from underground stranded coal reserves (Anachronistic Bio-Carbon – ABC) by a controlled and sequestered gasification process.
Stranded Energy Resource: Any energy resource that cannot be economically or technologically recovered.
Stored Solar Energy: Any medium in which the bi-products of photosynthetic, or photothermal energy that is originated from solar irradiance can be stably stored. Such storage presupposes a means of readily extracting or converting the energy in efficient manner.
Subatomic: Smaller than or occurring within an atom.
Subatomic Particle: Particles much smaller than atoms.
SunGas™: 1. An extracted energy carriers from bio-carbons originating from photosynthetic or organic debris transformed from stranded bio-carbons without the need for oxygen. This gas may be extracted by a chemical, thermal, or electrical decomposition of coal or similar bio-carbons.
2.Trademarked term for Syngas, a fuel gas mixture consisting primarily of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and very often some carbon dioxide.
Supramolecular: The domain of chemistry beyond that of molecules that focuses on the chemical systems made up of a discrete number of assembled molecular subunits or components.
Syngas: A fuel gas mixture consisting primarily of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and very often some carbon dioxide.
T
Tensor: Geometric objects that describe linear relations between geometric vectors, scalars, and other tensors.
Tetravalence: In chemistry, tetravalence is the state of an atom with four valence electrons available for covalent chemical bonding in its outermost electron shell, giving the atom a chemical valence of four.
Thermal Engineering: A study of energy transport particularly in nanoscale structure to obtain knowledge and understanding of the scientific effects on physical world that can engineering discoveries in industrial energy applications.
Tree: In mathematics, and more specifically in graph theory, a tree is an undirected graph in which any two vertices are connected by exactly one path.
Turbine: A rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work.
U
Underground Coal Gasification (UCG): An industrial process which converts coal into product gas. UCG is an in-situ gasification process carried out in non-mined coal seams using injection of oxidants, and bringing the product gas to surface through production wells drilled from the surface.
Underground Cellular Gasification Reactor (UCGR): Compartments constructed underground and designed to contain the controlled a chemical reaction that converts organic- or fossil fuel-based carbonaceous materials into carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
V
Valence: In chemistry, the valence of an element is a measure of its combining power with other atoms when it forms chemical compounds or molecules.
W
X
Y
Z