Implementation of National Academies' study recommendations: A fuel economy case study

A battery is a galvanic cell that is used as a source of electrical power for specific applications. Modern batteries exist in a multitude of forms to accommodate various applications, from tiny button batteries such as those that power wristwatches to the very large batteries used to supply backup energy to municipal power grids. Some batteries are designed for single-use applications and cannot be recharged (primary cells), while others are based on conveniently reversible cell reactions that...

The turnover number of an enzyme is the maximum number of substrate molecules it can transform per unit time. Turnover numbers for most enzymes range from 1 to 1000 molecules per second. Catalase has the known highest turnover number, capable of converting up to 2.8×106 molecules of hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen per second. Lysozyme has the lowest known turnover number of half a molecule per second.
Chymotrypsin is a pancreatic enzyme that breaks down proteins during digestion....

The internal combustion engine is a heat engine that uses the byproducts of combustion as the working fluid instead of using a heat transfer medium to transfer heat. The combustion is done in a way that produces high-pressure combustion products that can be expanded through a turbine or piston to create work. Internal combustion engines can again be categorized into three kinds: (1) spark ignition gasoline engines, most commonly used in automobiles, (2) compression ignition diesel engines that...

The low reactivity in alkanes can be attributed to the non-polar nature of C–C and C–H σ bonds. Alkanes, therefore, were  initially termed as “paraffins,” derived from the Latin words: parum, meaning “too little,” and affinis, meaning “affinity.”
Alkanes undergo combustion in the presence of excess oxygen and high-temperature conditions to give carbon dioxide and water. A combustion reaction is the energy source in natural gas, liquified...

The hypothetical Carnot cycle consists of an ideal gas subjected to two isothermal and two adiabatic processes. Since the internal energy of an ideal gas depends only on its temperature, which is the same before and after the completion of the Carnot cycle, there is no change in its internal energy. Hence, using the first law of thermodynamics, the total heat exchanged by the ideal gas equals the total work done. Thus, we can quantify the efficiency of the Carnot cycle via the heat exchanged...

Enthalpy changes are typically tabulated for reactions in which both the reactants and products are at the same conditions. A standard state is a commonly accepted set of conditions used as a reference point for the determination of properties under other different conditions. For chemists, the IUPAC standard state refers to materials under a pressure of 1 bar and solutions at 1 M and does not specify a temperature. Many thermochemical tables list values with a standard state of 1 atm. Because...