atom: The basic unit of a chemical element. Atoms are made up of a dense nucleus that contains positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons. The nucleus is orbited by a cloud of negatively charged electrons.
catalyst: (v. catalyze) A substance that helps a chemical reaction to proceed faster. Examples include enzymes and elements such as platinum and iridium.
concentration: (in chemistry) A measurement of how much of one substance has been dissolved into another.
copper: A metallic chemical element in the same family as silver and gold. Because it is a good conductor of electricity, it is widely used in electronic devices.
crude oil: Petroleum in the form as it comes out of the ground.
crust: (in geology) Earth’s outermost surface, usually made from dense, solid rock (in planetary science) the outermost surface of rocky planets, dwarf planets and natural satellites.
data: Facts and/or statistics collected together for analysis but not necessarily organized in a way that gives them meaning. For digital information (the type stored by computers), those data typically are numbers stored in a binary code, portrayed as strings of zeros and ones.
electron: A negatively charged particle, usually found orbiting the outer regions of an atom; also, the carrier of electricity within solids.
element: A building block of some larger structure. (in chemistry) Each of more than one hundred substances for which the smallest unit of each is a single atom. Examples include hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, lithium and uranium.
extract: (v.) To separate one chemical (or component of something) from a complex mix. (noun) A substance, often in concentrated form, that has been removed from some source material. Extracts are often taken from plants (such as spearmint or lavender), flowers and buds (such as roses and cloves), fruit (such as lemons and oranges) or seeds and nuts (such as almonds and pistachios). Such extracts, sometimes used in cooking, often have very strong scents or…
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