A heterogeneous compound, mixture, reaction or other such object is one that consists of many different items, which are often not easily sorted or separated, though they are clearly distinct.

Heterogeneous is the antonym of homogeneous, which means that the object consists of many identical items. It is often used in a scientific (such as a kind of catalyst), mathematical or statistical context. In meta analysis it refers to the presence of multiple random intercepts in a dataset.

Examples

• A heterogeneous mixture is a mixture of two or more compounds.
• In chemical kinetics, a heterogeneous reaction is one that takes place at the interface of two or more phases, i.e. between a solid and a gas, a liquid and a gas, or a solid and a liquid.
• In the world of enterprise computing, heterogeneous data is a mix of data from two or more sources, often of two or more formats, e.g., SQL and XML.
• In taxonomy, a heterogeneous taxon is a taxon that contains a great variety of individuals or sub-taxa; usually this implies that the taxon is an artificial grouping.

See also

• amorphous
• heterozygous
• homogenization
• homozygous

Physical chemistry

متغاير | Heterogenität (Pädagogik) | Heterojen