Fuels and conversion technology

Petroleum coke

Petroleum coke, also known as petcoke, is a carbon-rich solid with 90 to 95 percent carbon made when refinery residual oils crack, used mainly for electricity generation and aluminum anodes.

Petroleum product

A petroleum product, also called an oil by-product, is any fuel or material obtained from processing crude oil at refineries, including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, asphalt, and lubricants.

Plasma arc gasification

Plasma arc gasification is a waste treatment process in which a plasma torch breaks organic waste down into syngas while melting the inorganic fraction into a glassy, leach-resistant slag.

Plasma-assisted combustion (PAC) uses electrical discharge plasmas to modify flame chemistry and flow, enhancing ignition, stabilizing ultra-lean mixtures, and reducing pollutants in gas turbines and aerospace engines.

Plastic-to-fuel

Plastic-to-fuel (PTF) is a set of thermochemical and catalytic technologies that convert waste plastics into fuels such as diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, or hydrogen, chiefly by pyrolysis.

Polycrystalline SnSe thermoelectric

Polycrystalline tin selenide (SnSe) is a bulk, multi-grain form of the layered semiconductor SnSe, a thermoelectric material that converts heat into electricity and is cheaper and more scalable to make than single crystals.

Sep 29, 2026

Power-to-X

Power-to-X (PtX, P2X) is a family of energy conversion technologies that use electricity, typically from renewable sources, to produce fuels and chemicals such as hydrogen, methane, and methanol.

Premixed combustion

Premixed combustion is combustion in which the fuel and oxidizer are mixed before burning, so a flame propagates through a homogeneous mixture, as in a Bunsen burner.

Pyroelectric energy harvesting

Pyroelectric energy harvesting converts time-varying temperature into electricity using pyroelectric materials whose polarization changes with temperature, suiting wearables, sensors, and low-grade waste heat below 100 °C.

Pyrolysis

Pyrolysis, also called pyrolytic decomposition, is the thermal decomposition of organic materials in the absence of oxygen, typically at 300 to 800°C, yielding char, bio-oil, and gas.

Refuse-derived fuel

Refuse-derived fuel is a solid fuel made by shredding municipal waste and removing metals and glass, used to supplement fossil fuels in cement kilns and boilers.

Rocket stove

A rocket stove is a wood-burning cookstove conceived by Dr. Larry Winiarski at Aprovecho Research Center in Oregon in 1982, using an insulated chimney for a hot, efficient burn.

Ruwais

Ruwais, also known as Al Ruwais Industrial City, is an industrial city in Abu Dhabi, UAE, hosting the country's largest refining and petrochemical operations, including Borouge.

Scatec

Scatec, founded as Scatec Solar in 2007 and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange in 2014, is a Norwegian renewable energy company building solar, wind, and hydropower plants in emerging markets.

Sep 29, 2026

Selective non-catalytic reduction

Selective non-catalytic reduction (SNCR) is a flue gas treatment that injects ammonia or urea into combustion exhaust, reducing nitrogen oxides to nitrogen and water without a catalyst.

Shell MDS

Shell MDS, short for Shell Middle Distillate Synthesis, is a Shell gas-to-liquids plant in Bintulu, Malaysia, opened in 1993 as the world's first commercial-scale GTL plant.

Shell V-Power

Shell V-Power, or V-Power, is Shell's brand of premium performance fuels, a high-octane gasoline and diesel first sold in Singapore in 2000 and used in Scuderia Ferrari's Formula 1 race fuel.

Shenhua Baotou Coal Chemical

Shenhua Baotou Coal Chemical (神华包头煤化工) operates the world's first commercial coal-to-olefins plant, in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, converting coal to 600,000 tonnes of ethylene and propylene yearly since 2010.

Soot

Soot is a particulate carbon material formed as an unwanted by-product of incomplete combustion or pyrolysis, containing tars, resins, and inorganic solids; it differs from manufactured carbon black.

Sep 29, 2026

Space vector modulation

Space vector modulation (SVM) is a pulse-width modulation technique for three-phase inverters, yielding about 15% more output voltage than sinusoidal PWM from the same DC supply.

Spontaneous combustion

Spontaneous combustion, also called spontaneous ignition, is fire that starts without an external heat source after a material self-heats, as in oily rags, moist hay, and coal piles.

Steam turbine

A steam turbine, also called the Parsons turbine, converts thermal energy of pressurized steam into rotational mechanical energy; Charles Parsons built the first modern multi-stage design in 1884.

Sterno

Sterno, also known as Sterno Canned Heat, is an American brand of jellied alcohol cooking fuel in steel cans, used to keep food warm under chafing dishes.

Sturgeon Refinery

The Sturgeon Refinery is a bitumen refinery in Sturgeon County, Alberta, northeast of Edmonton, the first built in Canada since the 1980s, producing diesel from 2017.

Superionic thermoelectrics

Superionic thermoelectrics are thermoelectric materials where a liquid-like sublattice of mobile copper or silver ions suppresses heat flow while a rigid framework carries current, as in Cu2Se.

Swirl injector

A swirl injector, also known as a pressure-swirl or simplex atomizer, is a device that atomizes fuel or propellant into a hollow-cone spray using internal rotational flow.

Syngas

Syngas, or synthesis gas, is a gas of hydrogen and carbon monoxide made from coal, biomass, or natural gas and used to produce fuels and chemicals.

Synthetic fuel

Synthetic fuel, also known as synfuel, is a liquid or gaseous fuel made without refining crude oil, by routes such as coal-to-liquids, gas-to-liquids, or e-fuels from hydrogen and captured CO2.

Synthetic oil

Synthetic oil, also known as synthetic motor oil or synthetic lubricants, is a lubricant made by chemical synthesis rather than refined from crude oil, performing better at temperature extremes.