Edgepedia

Thermal expansion of seawater

Thermal expansion of seawater is the increase in ocean volume as water warms, a thermosteric effect that raises sea level and was a leading contributor to twentieth-century sea-level rise.

Thermal expansion valve

A thermal expansion valve, also called a thermostatic expansion valve or TXV, is a refrigerant metering device that controls flow into an evaporator based on superheat.

Thermal flyheight control

Thermal flyheight control (TFC) is a hard disk drive technology that uses a heater in the read/write head to lower its flying height, increasing recording density.

Thermal freeze-out

Thermal freeze-out is the process by which a particle in equilibrium in the early Universe decouples, leaving a relic abundance that can make cold dark matter.

Thermal gelation

Thermal gelation is a materials preparation method in which heating converts a solution or suspension into a gel, used for injectable drug depots, wound dressings, and tissue engineering scaffolds.

Thermal habitats as analogs for early Earth and extraterrestrial life

Thermal habitats, including alkaline vents like Lost City and hot springs like El Tatio, are natural laboratories for studying life's origins and analogs for early Mars and icy ocean worlds.

Thermal Hall effect

The thermal Hall effect, also known as the Righi-Leduc effect, is the transverse temperature difference generated across a material carrying a heat current in a perpendicular magnetic field.

Thermal hydrolysis

Thermal hydrolysis is a treatment process that heats organic matter with water under pressure, used mainly to pretreat sewage sludge before anaerobic digestion, raising biogas production by 15–60%.

Thermal infrared remote sensing

Thermal infrared remote sensing measures radiation emitted, not reflected, by the Earth's surface at roughly 7–14 µm, deriving surface temperature and mineral composition from it.

Thermal insulation

Thermal insulation, or heat insulation, reduces heat transfer between regions using materials with high resistance to heat flow, most often in buildings, mechanical systems, and cryogenic equipment.

Thermal interface material

A thermal interface material (TIM) is a substance placed between a heat-generating chip and a heat sink to displace trapped air, lower thermal resistance, and promote heat flow in electronics.

Thermal ionization mass spectrometry

Thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) is an analytical technique in which a heated metal filament ionizes a purified sample, giving isotope ratio precision as fine as 0.0001%.

Thermal karst springs

A thermal karst spring is a spring discharging geothermally heated water from a carbonate karst aquifer, heated by deep circulation and often emerging along faults, as at Pamukkale, Turkey.

Thermal laser epitaxy

Thermal laser epitaxy (TLE) is a thin-film deposition method, introduced in 2019, in which continuous-wave lasers evaporate source material and heat the substrate for epitaxial film growth.

Thermal logic gates

Thermal logic gates are devices that perform Boolean logic operations, such as AND, OR, and NOT, using heat rather than electricity, first proposed by Wang and Li in 2007.

Thermal low

A thermal low, also called a heat low, is a shallow area of surface low pressure produced by strong heating of the lower troposphere, common over hot subtropical deserts.

Thermal mass

Thermal mass is a material's ability to absorb, store, and release heat, used in building design through concrete, brick, stone, and water to moderate indoor temperature swings.

Thermal metamaterial

A thermal metamaterial is an artificial composite whose heat-transport properties are set by its architecture rather than composition, with applications in aerospace, energy, and electronics.

A thermal metamaterial emitter is an artificially structured material that controls the thermal radiation a hot object gives off, shaping its spectrum, direction, polarization, or coherence, with uses in thermophotovoltaics and radiative cooling.

Thermal metamaterials with anisotropic heat conduction cloaks

Thermal metamaterials with anisotropic heat conduction cloaks are artificial composites that guide heat around a protected region; thermal cloaking, their main application, was first demonstrated experimentally in 2012.

Thermal metamaterials with transformation heat flow

Thermal metamaterials with transformation heat flow are engineered structures that steer heat conduction along prescribed paths, using anisotropic conductivities derived from coordinate transformations of the heat equation.

Thermal network model

A thermal network model is a lumped-parameter method that represents heat flow as a network of nodes with thermal resistances and capacitances, used for fast thermal analysis.

Thermal oxidation

Thermal oxidation is a semiconductor fabrication process in which a silicon wafer is heated in oxygen or steam, growing a silicon dioxide layer used as gate dielectric and isolation.

Thermal paper

Thermal paper is paper coated with heat-sensitive chemicals that darken where a thermal printhead applies heat, allowing printing without ink or ribbon; it is used for receipts, labels, and tickets.

Thermal plasma

A thermal plasma, also called an equilibrium or hot plasma, is an ionized gas where electron and heavy-particle temperatures are nearly equal, typically 10,000 to 25,000 K.

Thermal pollution

Thermal pollution, or heat pollution, is water quality degradation caused by discharging water at a temperature different from the receiving body, most often heated cooling water from power stations.

Thermal Power Plant No. 4

Thermal Power Plant No. 4 (ДЦС-4) is a coal-fired combined heat and power plant in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and the country's largest power plant, operating since 1983.

Thermal Power Plants Holding

Thermal Power Plants Holding (TPPH) is Iran's state holding company under the Ministry of Energy, headquartered in Tehran, managing thermal plants that supply about 93% of the country's electricity.

Thermal power station

A thermal power station, also called a steam power plant, converts heat from fuel, nuclear reactions, or geothermal sources into electricity, typically via steam driving a turbine and generator.