GB373806A - Improvements in the manufacture and production of candles - Google Patents

Abstract

Candles are made from a mixture of wax or other usual combustible with at least 2 per cent of solid, preferably saturated, aliphatic alcohols. Suitable alcohols are those obtained by (1) the saponification of natural waxes, e.g. spermaceti, sperm oil, and carnauba, bees, montan, or shellac waxes; (2) the reduction of the acids or esters in destructively oxidized paraffin wax or in natural waxes or animal or vegetable fats or oils, e.g. linseed, castor, rapeseed, cottonseed, olive, peanut, whale, seal and fish oils, or stearine; reduction may be effected by the process described in Specification 356,731. Other specified alcohols are tetradecyl, cetyl, octodecyl, ceryl, and myricyl alcohols, docosanol, octodecandiol, and the alcohols obtained by reducing mixtures of acids obtained as described in Specification 305,552, [Class 91, Oils &c.], by treating montan wax with chromic acid. Usual candle-making materials specified are paraffin wax, beeswax, tallow, spermaceti, stearine, stearic acid, and fatty acids of high molecular weight obtained by the destructive oxidation of paraffin wax, middle oils and like hydrocarbons. Examples include the use of 70 lb. of beeswax with 30 lb. of myricyl alcohol, and of 97 lb. of paraffin wax with 3 lb. of octodecyl alcohol.