Carbon is 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 the periodic table. Three isotopes occur naturally, 12C and 13C being stable, while 14C is a radionuclide, decaying with a half-life of about 5,730 years. Carbon is one of the few elements known since antiquity.
Carbon dioxide (chemical formula CO2) is a colorless gas with a density about 60% higher than that of dry air. Carbon dioxide consists of a carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It occurs naturally in Earth's atmosphere as a trace gas. The current concentration is about 0.04% (410 ppm) by volume, having risen from pre-industrial levels of 280 ppm. Natural sources include volcanoes, hot springs and geysers, and it is freed from carbonate rocks by dissolution in water and acids. Because carbon dioxide is soluble in water, it occurs naturally in groundwater, rivers and lakes, ice caps, glaciers and seawater. It is present in deposits of petroleum and natural gas. Carbon dioxide is odorless at normally encountered concentrations. However, at high concentrations, it has a sharp and acidic odor.
In organic chemistry, functional groups are specific substituents or moieties within molecules that are responsible for the characteristic chemical reactions of those molecules. The same functional group will undergo the same or similar chemical reaction(s) regardless of the size of the molecule it is a part of. This allows for systematic prediction of chemical reactions and behavior of chemical compounds and design of chemical syntheses. Furthermore, the reactivity of a functional group can be modified by other functional groups nearby. In organic synthesis, functional group interconversion is one of the basic types of transformations.
Monosaccharides, also called simple sugars, are the simplest form of sugar and the most basic units of carbohydrates. They cannot be further hydrolyzed to simpler chemical compounds. The general formula is C
nH
2nO
n. They are usually colorless, water-soluble, and crystalline solids. Some monosaccharides have a sweet taste.
The PaleozoicEra is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. It is the longest of the Phanerozoic eras, lasting from 541 to 251.902 million years ago, and is subdivided into six geologic periods : the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian. The Paleozoic comes after the Neoproterozoic Era of the Proterozoic Eon and is followed by the Mesozoic Era.
Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that can later be released to fuel the organisms' activities. This chemical energy is stored in carbohydrate molecules, such as sugars, which are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water – hence the name photosynthesis, from the Greek φῶς, phōs, "light", and σύνθεσις, synthesis, "putting together". In most cases, oxygen is also released as a waste product. Most plants, most algae, and cyanobacteria perform photosynthesis; such organisms are called photoautotrophs. Photosynthesis is largely responsible for producing and maintaining the oxygen content of the Earth's atmosphere, and supplies all of the organic compounds and most of the energy necessary for life on Earth.
Emissions trading is a market-based approach to controlling pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants.
A carbon tax is a tax levied on the carbon content of fuels. It is a form of carbon pricing. Carbon is present in every hydrocarbon fuel and converted to carbon dioxide and other products when combusted. In contrast, non-combustion energy sources—wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, and nuclear—do not convert hydrocarbons to CO
2.
Melvin Ellis Calvin was an American biochemist most famed for discovering the Calvin cycle along with Andrew Benson and James Bassham, for which he was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He spent most of his five-decade career at the University of California, Berkeley.
Charles David Keeling was an American scientist whose recording of carbon dioxide at the Mauna Loa Observatory first alerted the world to the possibility of anthropogenic contribution to the "greenhouse effect" and global warming. The Keeling Curve measures the progressive buildup of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, in the atmosphere.
A zinc–carbon battery is a dry cell primary battery that delivers about 1.5 volts of direct current from the electrochemical reaction between zinc and manganese dioxide. A carbon rod collects the current from the manganese dioxide electrode, giving the name to the cell. A dry cell is usually made from zinc which serves as the anode with a negative electrical polarity, while the inert carbon rod is the positive electrical pole cathode. General purpose batteries may use an aqueous paste of ammonium chloride as electrolyte, possibly mixed with some zinc chloride solution. Heavy duty types use a paste primarily composed of zinc chloride.
Enhanced oil recovery, also called tertiary recovery, is the extraction of crude oil from an oil field that cannot be extracted otherwise. EOR can extract 30% to 60% or more of a reservoir's oil, compared to 20% to 40% using primary and secondary recovery. According to the US Department of Energy, there are three primary techniques for EOR: thermal, gas injection, and chemical injection. More advanced, speculative EOR techniques are sometimes called quaternary recovery.
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) is a NASA satellite mission intended to provide global space-based observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The original spacecraft was lost in a launch failure on 24 February 2009, when the payload fairing of the Taurus rocket which was carrying it failed to separate during ascent. The added mass of the fairing prevented the satellite from reaching orbit. It subsequently re-entered the atmosphere and crashed into the Indian Ocean near Antarctica. The replacement satellite, Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2, was launched 2 July 2014 aboard a Delta II rocket. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3, a stand-alone payload built from the spare OCO-2 flight instrument, will be installed on the International Space Station's Kibō Exposed Facility in April 2019.
Chandra Kumar Naranbhai Patel (born 2 July 1938) is an electrical engineer. He developed the carbon dioxide laser in 1963; it is now widely used in industry for cutting and welding, as a laser scalpel in surgery, and in laser skin resurfacing. Because the atmosphere is quite transparent to infrared light, CO2 lasers are also used for military rangefinding using LIDAR techniques.
Olinda is a neighborhood in Brea, California, located on Carbon Canyon Road east of the rest of the city. The original village was founded in the 1890s and grew when petroleum was discovered at the adjacent Brea-Olinda Oil Field. In February 1917, Olinda Village and the nearby town of Randolph were incorporated as the city of Brea. The site is now registered as California Historical Landmark #918.
A low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) is a rule enacted to reduce carbon intensity in transportation fuels as compared to conventional petroleum fuels, such as gasoline and diesel. The most common low-carbon fuels are alternative fuels and cleaner fossil fuels, such as natural gas. The main purpose of a low-carbon fuel standard is to decrease carbon dioxide emissions associated with vehicles powered by various types of internal combustion engines while also considering the entire life cycle, in order to reduce the carbon footprint of transportation.
Coyote Creek is a principal tributary of the San Gabriel River in northwest Orange County, southeast Los Angeles County, and southwest Riverside County, California. It drains a land area of roughly 41.3 square miles (107 km2) covering five major cities, including Brea, Buena Park, Fullerton, La Habra, and La Palma. Some major tributaries of the creek in the highly urbanized watershed include Brea Creek, Fullerton Creek, and Carbon Creek. The mostly flat creek basin is separated by a series of low mountains, and is bounded by several small mountain ranges, including the Chino Hills, Puente Hills and West Coyote Hills.
Pasinogna is a former Tongva-Gabrieleño Native American settlement in San Bernardino County, California.
Carbon-neutral fuel is energy fuel or energy systems which have no net greenhouse gas emissions or carbon footprint. One class is synthetic fuel produced from renewable, sustainable or nuclear energy used to hydrogenate carbon dioxide directly captured from the air (DAC), recycled from power plant flue exhaust gas or derived from carbonic acid in seawater. Renewable energy sources include wind turbines, solar panels, and hydroelectric power stations. Another type of renewable energy source is biofuel. Such fuels are potentially carbon-neutral because they do not result in a net increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases.
Craig E. Manning is a professor of geology and geochemistry in the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he served as department chair between 2009 and 2012. Manning's research interests include water chemistry, thermodynamics, gas chemistry, geochemistry, igneous petrology, and metamorphic petrology.
