Petroleum Jelly: Vacuum Residue Filtered Warm Through Bone Black

Petroleum jelly (petrolatum, vaseline) is what is left of crude oil after the lighter parts are distilled off, cleaned by filtering it warm through bone black. The 1907 US Dispensatory and Thorpe (1913) describe the process: the first colourless runnings become petroleum jelly, and the later, darker filtrate is cylinder oil. The picture: white petrolatum (Wikimedia Commons).

متقدم

Several days

التعليمات

Distil off the light cuts

Distil crude oil in an atmospheric column and draw off the lighter cuts. Keep the residue from the bottom.

المواد لهذه الخطوة:

النفط الخام1 t

الأدوات المطلوبة:

عمود التقطير الجوي

Reduce under vacuum

Distil the residue further under vacuum, heated by coils carrying superheated steam, not by direct fire. Done right, the reduced oil reaches a fire-test of 337.7 °C (640 °F) without any burnt smell.

الأدوات المطلوبة:

عمود التقطير بالتفريغ

مضخة تفريغ

Filter warm through bone black

Melt the reduced oil and run it onto steam-jacketed filters of fine, granular, well-dried bone black, kept at 43.3–54.4 °C (110–130 °F).

الأدوات المطلوبة:

مرشح بمعطف بخاري

أسود العظم

مزدوجة حرارية بقارئ

Keep the clear runnings

The first filtrate is colourless; it then turns straw or lemon, and finally red. Keep the clear runnings for petroleum jelly. The red filtrate is cylinder oil, a lubricant.

الأدوات المطلوبة:

مرشح بمعطف بخاري

علبة صفيح

Set the melting point

If the jelly is too soft, stir pure block paraffin into the warm oil until it has the right melting point. It dissolves completely. Pour it into tins to set.

المواد لهذه الخطوة: