Nonheat

Nonheat is not a standard, widely defined term in science or engineering. In informal use, it may refer to conditions, processes, or products where heat transfer is not involved or is deliberately avoided. The closest formal concept is the adiabatic process in thermodynamics, where no heat is exchanged with the surroundings (Q = 0). In this sense, “nonheat” could be understood as a descriptive rather than a technical label.

In different fields, the phrase may appear in marketing, product labeling, or popular descriptions to indicate that a process does not require heat, or that a material has been prepared without heating. Such usage is nonstandard and highly context-dependent, and meanings can vary between sources. In food science, similar ideas are more often described with terms like non-thermal or raw, which have more precise technical definitions than “nonheat.”

Because there is no formal consensus on the term, readers encountering nonheat should carefully consider the surrounding context to determine whether it refers to an absence of heat transfer, a general non-thermal claim, or a marketing description. Ambiguities may include whether internal heat generation is possible, whether energy changes occur via work alone, and whether the label aligns with recognized thermodynamic terms.

See also: heat, caloric theory, thermodynamics, adiabatic process, isothermal process, non-thermal.