Oils, Petroleum Illuminating

From the late 1850s to the turn of the ccntui-y, the major interest in petroleum was as a source of kerosene, as both a fuel and illuniinant. As early as the 1820s, it was generally known from chemical experiments that illuminants, heating fuels, and lubricants could be obtained relatively cheaply from the distillation of crude oil. 

Mineral oil the older term for petroleum the term was introduced in the nineteenth century as a means of differentiating petroleum (rock oil) from whale oil or oil from plants that, at the time, were the predominant illuminant for oil lamps. 

Kerosene (Kerosine, Coal Oil, Astral Oil). A mixt of petroleum hydrocarbons, chiefly of the methane series having from 1Q to 16 carbon atoms per molecule. It constitutes the fifth fraction in the distn of petroleum, after the petroleum ethers and before the oils. Pale yel or w-white, mobile liq characteristic, not altogether disagreeable odor bp 175-325°, flash pt 150-185°F, d about 0.80g/cc. Insol in w, misc with other petroleum solvents. Besides uses as a fuel, illuminant and cleansing agent, it is used as a rocket and jet engine fuel (Refs 1, 3 4)... 

Howard s ( d) pioneer experiment on the use of kerosene against mosquito larvae, published in 1892, is well known. It is not so well known, however, that in 1867 he observed how illuminating oil killed mosquito larvae when he accidentally spilled some oil while filling a lantern over a horse trough infested with wrigglers. When called upon to devise a means for killing mosquitoes in later years, he remembered this incident on his father s farm in his early boyhood and so performed experiments that led to the universal use of petroleum oils as mosquito larvicides. 

Historically, in those rural areas where modernization has occurred, petroleum products have provided the necessary energy inputs required for a variety of activities. Kerosene is a widely used illuminant, diesel oil for powering irrigation pumps and other farm equipment, gasoline for transportation and fertilizers are often manufactured from naphtha. However, the world oil situation now makes the "petroleum route" to development an increasingly difficult one for many developing countries to undertake. 

Kerosene is a refined petroleum distillate that has a hash point about 25°C (77°F) and is suitable for use as an illuminant when burned in a wide lamp. The term kerosene is also too often incorrectly applied to various fuel oils, but a fuel oil is actually any liquid or liquid petroleum product that produces heat when burned in a suitable container or that produces power when burned in an engine. 

Naphtha, produced in petroleum refineries Naphthanic acids, produced in petroleum refineries Oils, partly refined sold for rerunning—produced in petroleum refineries Oils fuel, lubricating, and illuminating— produced in petroleum refineries Paraffin wax, produced in petroleum refineries Petroleum, produced in petroleum refineries Petroleum refining Propylene, produced in petroleum refineries Road materials, bituminous produced in petroleum refineries... 

Although both are closely linked in our minds and by our own experience, the petroleum industry predated the automobile industry by half a century. The first oil well, drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania, by Edwin Drake in 1859, provided rock oil, as it was then called, on a large scale. This was quickly followed by the development of a process to refine it so as to produce kerosene. As a fuel for oil lamps, kerosene burned with a bright, clean flame and soon replaced the more expensive whale oil then in use. Other oil fields were discovered, and uses for other petroleum products were found—illuminating gas lit city streets, and oil heated homes and powered locomotives. There were oil refineries long before there were automobiles. By the time the first Model T rolled off Henry Ford s assembly line in 1908, John D. Rockefeller s Standard Oil holdings had already made him one of the half-dozen wealthiest people in the world. 

A refined petroleum distillate intermediate in volatility between gasoline and gas oil. Its distillation range generally falls within the limits of 150 and 300°C. Its main uses are as a jet engine fuel, an illuminant, for heating purposes and as a fuel for certain types of internal combustion engines. 

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