methane
a colorless, odorless, flammable gas, CH4, the main constituent of marsh gas and the firedamp of coal mines, obtained commercially from natural gas: the first member of the methane, or alkane, series of hydrocarbons.
Origin of methane
1Words Nearby methane
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use methane in a sentence
Natural gas mostly produces methane, which is the second leading contributor to global warming.
Environment Report: How We Know Humans Are Warming the Planet | MacKenzie Elmer | January 4, 2021 | Voice of San DiegoThose precursors include nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds — both produced by traffic — as well as methane, produced by the oil and gas industry.
What the pandemic can teach us about ways to reduce air pollution | Carolyn Gramling | January 4, 2021 | Science NewsCreating jet fuel is particularly challenging because most routes for synthesizing hydrocarbons from CO2 tend to produce smaller molecules with only a few carbon atoms, like methane and methanol.
Scientists Just Created a Catalyst That Turns CO2 Into Jet Fuel | Edd Gent | January 3, 2021 | Singularity HubThe technology is more typically used in military and industrial settings, such as detecting methane gas leaks in pipelines.
Military-grade camera shows risks of airborne coronavirus spread | Dalton Bennett, Sarah Cahlan, Daron Taylor | December 11, 2020 | Washington PostOther projects target methane, a particularly powerful greenhouse gas.
How to buy carbon offsets that actually make a difference | Ula Chrobak | December 3, 2020 | Popular-Science
That can happen, according to the report, when (flammable) methane leaks out of fracking wells and into drinking water.
methane could be produced by microbes on Mars, too, if they exist in enough numbers.
methane is a familiar chemical, whether you know it by that name or not.
Perhaps the mysterious Martian methane, and its strange fluctuations, are part of that story.
And if the Martian methane is a real thing, it has some interesting implications.
All of them were fueled with liquid HNO3, which makes a pretty good fuel in an atmosphere that is predominantly methane.
Unwise Child | Gordon Randall GarrettThe seas of Eisberg were liquid methane containing dissolved ammonia.
Unwise Child | Gordon Randall GarrettWhen the pumps in the air lock began pulling out the methane-laden atmosphere, they began to bulge slightly, but not excessively.
Unwise Child | Gordon Randall Garrettmethane is yielded by aluminium and beryllium carbides, and, mixed with hydrogen, by manganese carbide.
Those gases which contain less methane contain all the more hydrogen, viz.
British Dictionary definitions for methane
/ (ˈmiːθeɪn) /
Origin of methane
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for methane
[ mĕth′ān′ ]
A colorless, odorless, flammable gas that is the simplest hydrocarbon. It is the major constituent of natural gas and is released during the decomposition of plant or other organic compounds, as in marshes and coal mines. Methane is the first member of the alkane series. Chemical formula: CH4.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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