How is candle wax produced

Tallow was the typical everyday candle wax used in Europe and the Americas until the 18th century, when the whaling industry stimulated the development of spermaceti wax, a clean-burning, low-odor wax derived from the head oil of the sperm whale. Spermaceti remained the primary candle wax until the mids, when stearin wax and then paraffin wax were developed. Stearin wax, based on extracting stearic acid from animal fatty acids, was widely used in Europe.

Paraffin wax, developed after chemists found a way to remove the naturally-occurring waxy substance from petroleum during refining, became the standard candle wax in the Western Hemisphere. During the latter half of the 20th century, several synthetic and chemically synthesized waxes, including gels, were developed largely for specialty candle uses. Two vegetable-based candle waxes — soy wax and palm wax — were developed for commercial use in the candle market during the late s by hydrogenating soybean and palm oils, respectively.

Paraffin is by far the most frequently used candle wax on a worldwide basis today. Other important differentiating criteria are hardness, oil content and viscosity. Due to their chemical-physical properties, paraffins are suitable for all candle production processes. Through close cooperation between Balthasar and the paraffin producers, the right paraffin can be used in candle production, depending on the end product. Beeswax - the oldest raw material for candles, is a metabolic product of the honeybee.

The wax is excreted on the belly side of the building bees and used to build honeycombs. The beeswax gets its colour and pleasant smell over time through contact with honey and pollen. Its colour varies from yellow to light and dark green to red yellow and dark brown. It has a blunt, fine-grained fracture, easy kneadability, great plasticity and is clearly sticky when heated.

Naturally, this raw material is only available to a limited extent. Natural beeswax contains a number of impurities that are removed by various cleaning processes. It is often then bleached with bleaching earth or hydrogen peroxide. However, because the colour and odour are also lost as a result, high-purity beeswax is sometimes subsequently used again for consumer reasons as an admixture for wax mixtures and because of its suppleness for the production of wax plates, such as those used for candle decorations, e.

Stearin Greek stear - tallow is a solid, crystalline mixture of various fatty acids, which essentially consists of palmitic and stearic acid. Although it has wax-like properties, it is usually not assigned to the waxes.

The starting materials for the production of stearin are animal or vegetable fats and oils. Palm oil is the primary vegetable raw material. The animal raw materials are mainly beef and pork oil, rarely fish oil or fish fat. Today, candle manufacturers mainly use vegetable Stearins.

One of the reasons for this is the very good temperature stability of stearic candles. In order to produce candles, manufacturers require the following elements: stearin, wax, wicks, dyes, production machines, packaging. Candle Flame The aim of a candle is to produce a flame. If we look closer at the flame, from a scientific point of view, here is what we observe: When a candle is lit up, the heat from the flame melts the raw materials down stearin and paraffin wax. The melted matter rises by capillarity to the top of the wick, and then evaporates once it reaches the extremity Beeswax Bees produce between eleven and nineteen million kilos of wax every year.

However, only 5. Worker bees produce wax through a small gland located under their abdomen. Over one million bees are required to produce one kilo of wax.

The composition of beeswax varies depending on the seasons, the altitude at which the bees live and the sorts of flowers and plants in which they gather: clover, orange blossoms, and sunflower or fruit trees in flower.

Stearin The basis for the industrial production and good combustion of candles has been established thanks to a discovery by the French chemist Chevreul. He expounded in that oils and grease were chemical compositions of a liquid glycerine and a mixture of a more or less solid matter saturated fat.

He managed to decompose a mixture of saturated fat into a liquid fraction oleine and a hard and solid fraction stearin. Stearin turns out to be, among others due to its colour, structure and short fusion curb, an excellent matter to be poured in metal moulds for candles. It was finally possible to produce on an industrial scale a candle that would burn clearly and regularly, that would not blacken, replacing the old soot candle. Paraffin wax For many years, the production of candles has been based on grease and beeswax.

At the beginning of the 19th Century, the invention of the braided wick and the discovery of stearin completely changed the quality of the combustion of candles. A few years later, paraffin wax was discovered. Fuchs extracted mineral oil out of paraffin and Buchner produced the first paraffin wax in In , Von Reichenbach distilled paraffin out of tar of beech wood. This naming is related to the poor capacity of this matter to react to chemicals agents.

The production of paraffin wax from coal started in Glasgow in In , the industry produced tons of paraffin wax, ten years later the amount had already reached tons. In the United States, the production of paraffin wax was developing even more. There, it was discovered that paraffin wax could be extracted from petrol, as well as from brown coal. In , paraffin wax could be found all over the world. From that time onwards, the candle industry has the raw materials at its disposal: beeswax, stearin and paraffin wax.

These raw materials can be mixed with each other: paraffin wax with stearin and paraffin wax with beeswax. Nowadays, the candle industry uses paraffin wax above all, followed by stearin. Beeswax is the least used for candle manufacturing. Paraffin wax is delivered in slabs, beads or powder.

It is also transported in liquid form in tank trucks.