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Candle moulding machine in Indonesia circa 1920. Candle making was developed independently in a number of countries around the world. [1]Candles were primarily made from tallow and beeswax in Europe from the Roman period until the modern era, when spermaceti (from sperm whales) was used in the 18th and 19th centuries, [2] and purified animal fats and paraffin wax since the 19th century. [1]
The wax scales are about three millimetres (0.12 in) across and 0.1 mm (0.0039 in) thick, and about 1100 are needed to make a gram of wax. [3] Worker bees use the beeswax to build honeycomb cells. For the wax-making bees to secrete wax, the ambient temperature in the hive must be 33 to 36 °C (91 to 97 °F).
A wax coating makes this Manila hemp waterproof. A lava lamp is a novelty item that contains wax melted from below by a bulb. The wax rises and falls in decorative, molten blobs. Sealing wax was used to close important documents in the Middle Ages. Wax tablets were used as writing surfaces.
Wax and tallow candles were made in monasteries in the medieval period, and in rural households, tallow candles may be made at home. [18] By the 13th century, candle making had become a guild craft in England and France, with a French guild documented as early as 1061. [ 18 ]
Robert Augustus Chesebrough (/ ˈ tʃ iː z b r oʊ /; [1] January 9, 1837 – September 8, 1933) was an American chemist who discovered petroleum jelly—which he marketed as Vaseline—and founder of the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company.
Paraffin wax (or petroleum wax) is a soft colorless solid derived from petroleum, coal, or oil shale that consists of a mixture of hydrocarbon molecules containing between 20 and 40 carbon atoms. It is solid at room temperature and begins to melt above approximately 37 °C (99 °F), [ 2 ] and its boiling point is above 370 °C (698 °F). [ 2 ]
Carnauba wax. Carnauba (/ k ɑːr ˈ n ɔː b ə,-ˈ n aʊ-,-ˈ n uː-,-n ɑː ˈ uː-/; [1] [2] Portuguese: carnaúba [kaʁnaˈubɐ]), also called Brazil wax and palm wax, is a wax of the leaves of the carnauba palm Copernicia prunifera (synonym: Copernicia cerifera), a plant native to and grown only in the northeastern Brazilian states of Ceará, Piauí, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do ...
Natural wax was largely replaced for the making of waxed paper (or paraffine paper) after Herman Frasch developed ways of purifying paraffin and coating paper with it in 1876. [2] Waxed paper is commonly used in cooking for its non-stick properties, and wrapping food for storage, such as cookies, as it keeps water out or in.