Waxes

There are animal, vegetable, mineral and synthetic waxes, depending upon the source. Animal waxed are secreted as protective coating by certain insects. Vegetable waxes are found as coatings on leaves, stems, flowers, and seeds. Mineral waxes are paraffin waxes obtained from petroleum, and such waxes are yielded by coal, peat, and lignite. Mineral waxes from petroleum are not true waxes (esters) but are so classified because of their physical characteristics.

Beeswax
This is probably the best known was. It is made from honeycombs by solvent extraction, expression, or boiling in water. Many church candles contain more than 50% of this wax.

Carnauba Wax
This wax is obtained from the carnauba palm, which grows in Brazil. The leaves are cut, dried for 3 days, and sent to the beater house. The drying loosen the wax, which can be easily beaten from the slashed leaf, and it fails to the floor where it is gathered at the end of the day and melted. Less than 1 liter of molten waxes are obtained from 19 liters of powdered wax. This is filtered through cheesecloth, allowed to harden and sold. A palm tree produce about 90 g of wax per year. This product is used as constituent of floor, automobile, and furniture polishes, and in carbon paper, candles and certain molded products.

Spermaceti
The oil removed from the head cavity, and partly the blubber of the sperm whale is in reality, a wax because of its chemical composition. Spermaceti is important for lubrication. The head oil, upon chilling and setting, is a solid wax. This constitute about 11% of the original oil and is largely cetyl palmitate. It is melted, treated with a hot, dilute caustic soda solution, washed with water, and run into molds to solidify. It is translucent, odorless, and tasteless and is used chiefly as a base for ointments. By methylating sperm oil, Archer-Daniels-Midland has obtained a low surface tension lubricant.

Ozocerite
This is the name given to certain naturally occurring mineral waxes. The ozocerite known commercially is a particular earth wax mined in eastern Europe, but important similar waxes are mined elsewhere. One variety, mined in Utah, is known as Utahwax or Utahozocerite. It can be substitute to a great extent for the other and is chiefly employed for electrical insulation waterproofing, and impregnating.

Paraffin Wax
This wax is concentrated in certain lubricating oil fractions as a result of distillation and is separated by chilling and filter pressing. Extraction of lube oil fractions with e.g. a mixture of methyl ethyl ketone and benzene, followed by distillations into narrow boiling fractions yields microcrystalline waxes.

Montan Wax
The name montan wax generally applies to the wax obtained from an bituminous wax solvent extracted from bituminous lignite or shale, but a similar wax may be obtained from peat or brown coal. Its important applications include electrical insulation polishes and pastes.

Candelilla Wax
This is the third most important US wax in tonnage and is made by boiling the stem of a plant common in Mexico and southwestern United States with a water sulfuric acid mixture and skimming off the wax which floats on the liquid. Another method of obtaining this wax is by extracting the stems with hexane and recovering the wax by distillation of the solvent.

Synthetic Wax
Various materials are used to make synthetic waxes. Carbowaxes are high molecular weight polyethylene glycols. They are useful as wax emulsifiers, as well as being waxy themselves. Higher aliphatic alcohols are used as emulsified wax substitutes. Other synthetic waxes are produced from fatty acids and amines, and chlorinated paraffin wax.