Candle making

As a result of development work between the Battelle Institute in Frankfurt and a German candle-making company, Aetema, biodegradable cellulose acetate compounds have been available since 1991 from the Rhone-Poulenc subsidiary Tubize Plastics. They are marketed under the trade names Bioceta and Biocellat. The system is centred round the use of an additive which acts both as a plasticiser and a biodegrading agent, causing the cellulose ester to decompose within 6-24 months. 

Paraffin waxes are also considered of mineral origin and are obtained from petroleum. The petroleum is distilled and the white colour of the wax is obtained by acid washing and purification. It has a typical melting point between about 47 °C and 64 °C. Its uses include candle making, casting and as a solidifier/stabilizer. The wax is composed of C20 C36 n-alkanes (40 90%), isoalkanes and cycloalkanes. 

Before lighting a Bunsen burner or candle, make sure that there are no flammable liquids nearby. Also, tie back long hair, and coniine any loose clothing. 

Petroleum waxes (and petrolatum) find many uses in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, paper manufacturing, candle making, electrical goods, rubber compounding, textiles, and many more. 

When your customers tell you they are largely satished with your product or service, you have a Class 1 problem just optimize. However, if customers tell you they are unsatished with your product or service, you have a Class 2 problem and you need to discover or invent a better solution that closes the dissatisfaction gap. Stated differently, if customers are generally happy with candles, make better candles if they are unhappy, discover a better way to illuminate the darkness. 

The production of animal byproducts into useful items is not a recent event. For example, early Eskimos and Native Americans used the parts of the animals that could not be eaten. Hides and skins were used for clothing and shelter, bones provided utensils, and crude soap was made from melted fat and wood ash. However, it took the development of other industries (i.e., soap and candle making) before rendering became an established industry. 

Candle making also played a major role in the development of the rendering industry. The method of making candles using tallow goes back to the Roman days. They used tallow as the combustible material surrounding a flax or cotton... 

Chemical processes, manufactures, and compounds, including medicine, dyeing, color making, distilling, soap and candle making, mortars, cements, etc. ... 

Prepared herbs or extracts of herbs can be used in candle making, or after the candle has been made by anointing the candle with a herbal anointing oil made specifically for the purpose. 

Spermaceti, which is a crystalline wax obtained from sperm oil, consists mainly of cetyl palmitate, C15H31COOC16H33. It is used in candle-making, in confectionery, and in perfumery. 

Here s a simple dripless-candle-making trick you can try. Pour some water into a bowl and add a couple of tablespoons of salt. Soak ordinary candles in the water for a couple of hours, and presto You have dripless candles. The wax absorbs the salt, which raises its melting point. 

The microcrystalline grades also vary much more widely than paraffins in their physical characteristics some are ductile and others are brittle or crumble easily. Both paraffin and microcrystalline waxes have wide uses in food packaging, paper coating, textile moisture proofing, candle-making, and cosmetics. Petrolatum is derived from heavy residual lube stock by propane dilution and filtering or centrifuging. It is microcrystalline in character and semi-solid at room temperature. 

These fatty matters do not reqnire caustic alkali for their conversion into soap, since they have already been converted into fat acids, by the various processes employed in the manufacture of stearine for candle-making. It is usual, therefore, to treat these oils with carbonated alkali, as before shown. There are, however, several methods of neutralising these fat acids with carbonate of soda, from which the manufacturer may select that which has his preference. It is necessary that the soap-pan should he capacious, or that only a moderate charge of oil should be... 

Tallow.—The animal fats chiefly used in candle making are mutton and beef suets, and consist of stearin, palmitin, and olein, the stearin, however, preponderating, but rary-ing in percentage in diflPereut species of animal, the nature of its food, and its age. Mutton fat contains more stearin than beef. The melting point of beef fat is 100° F., while that of mutton fat is from 100 to 106° F, Melted mutton fat becomes solid at 100 F., but in solidifying its tean perature rises to 111 F. 

Wicks —An important feature in connection with the candle-making industry is the preparation of the wicks for the various kinds of candles required by the consumer. For ordinary tallow or candles, the wicks are made... 

Paraffin wax is required not only for candle-making but there are many other applications as for example coatings of papers or cloths, modification of bitumen, ingredients for cosmetics and even for chewing gum. Wax fractions of distinct properties are produced by short path distillation. The feedstock is distilled in a plant with two (or more) stages (i) separation of volatiles and (ii) overhead distillation of the product. Apart from the volatiles the feedstock and the product streams are solid at room temperature. Such a plant requires adequate heat tracing of all piping. 

S. is used locally in foods, cosmetics and for illumination. Most of it, however, is exported from West Africa to Europe, where s. is used as a substitute for cocoa butter in confectionery and cosmetic applications as well as for soap and candle making. Special mention should be made here of the UV-protecting abilities that are natural to s. The press cake contains little protein, but may be used as a constituent of compound feed cakes for cattle. 

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