Wax is an insoluble solid fatty substance that is widely used as a protective covering for different kinds of surfaces. It is also used for making candles and polishes. Waxed paper is an item of our daily use. Do you know how wax is made?
Normally wax is solid at room temperature but softens and becomes sticky when heated. Many fruits and vegetables, and leaves of many plants have a thin protective coating of wax. It is useful in protection of organisms. Many animals also produce wax. We get wax in large quantities from minerals and petroleum. Nowadays synthetic methods have been developed for the manufacture of wax.
Depending upon the source from which wax is obtained, we classify wax into four kinds: (i) mineral wax (ii) animal wax (iii) vegetable Wax and (iv) synthetic wax. Paraffin wax is a kind of mineral wax which is taken out of petroleum. This is quite hard in nature. Petroleum jelly is a kind of soft wax and is used for medicinal purposes. More than 90 percent of all commercial wax used today is petroleum wax. This is very useful because it is odourless, tasteless and chemically inactive.
Animal wax, such as bees wax produced by bees, is used for making candles, cosmetics, polishes, crayons and artificial flowers. We get wool wax from wool-bearing animals and are called lanolin when purified. Lanolin is widely used for manufacture of moisturizer and skin creams.
We get several kinds of wax from plants. Carnauba wax is obtained from the leaves of the carnauba palm trees of Brazil. This wax is hard and gives an excellent brightness when used as a floor and furniture polish. Candellilla wax comes from a plant of the same name that grows in Mexico and the South Western United States. It is a brown wax used in phonograph records, floor dressings and candles. Bay berry wax from the berries of this shrub is used for making candles.
Synthetic waxes are chemical combinations of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and sometimes chlorine. They are made according to different formulae to have definite properties.
