Montan wax
Montan wax also mountain wax , bitumen from lignite , is a black-brown, hard, brittle, fossil vegetable wax which is extracted from bituminous lignite types . Similar to the carnauba wax today, the montan wax protected the leaves of the trees in the Tertiary period from drying out and UV radiation . The name is derived from the Latin montanus (originating on the mountains, native).
history
The first report on "bitumen coal" was written by the doctor Matthias Zacharis Pillingen in 1674, and around 1800 an enrichment of bitumen in coal is described in mineralogical writings under the name "Pyropissit". The production of montan wax took place in the area of lignite extraction, in 1897 Edgar von Boyen succeeded in extracting it from lignite, which he named as montan wax.
Extraction
Lignite deposits suitable for extraction can be found:
- near Amsdorf ( Amsdorf opencast mine ), processing by Romonta , the world's largest manufacturer
- near Völpke ( Helmstedter Revier ), processing by Völpker Montanwachs GmbH , later Völpker Spezialprodukte GmbH
- near Ione (California)
The extraction takes place mainly in open-cast mining , the raw coal is ground and hot solvents ( toluene , benzene ) flow through it, thus removing the wax it contains. The raw montan wax is then bleached and refined. The resin removal process is the first step. Refining can be carried out by distillation , bleaching with fuller's earth and activated carbon or with conc. Sulfuric acid , nitric acid , with alkalis, hydrogenation and bleaching by oxidation with chromic acid , chromic sulfuric acid . By steam distillation of crude Montan wax is obtained paraffins, olefins and wax and Montan pitch which still undecomposed wax, free acids, ketones contains and minerals.
properties
The raw montan wax is black-brown in color and hard, in a bleached and refined form it is yellowish to white. It consists of a mixture of long-chain carboxylic acid esters , e.g. B. esters of montanic acid , cerotic acid , melissic together with other and contains as further constituents Montan alcohol ( ceryl -, Myricylalkohole etc.), fatty acids , montan resins, unsaponifiable components and traces of minerals . The cleaned product is almost colorless and soluble in fat solvents and partly in alcohol, but not in water.
use
Montan wax is used as a base for shoe polish , floor wax and other products. The esters of montanic acid are used as a food additive (E 912) for the surface treatment of citrus fruits. It is used as a cheap lubricant in plastics production . In the past, a lot of montan wax was used to make carbon paper .
During the Second World War, waxes for phlegmatizing the explosives nitropenta and hexogen were produced in Germany under the technical name IG-Wachs .
Web links
- Montan wax from materialarchiv.ch, accessed on August 20, 2016.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Matthias Zacharis Pillingen: Bitumen et lignum fossil bituminosum. G. Richteri, Altenburgi 1674.
- ↑ Gustav Hefter: The fat processing industries. Volume 3, Springer, 1910, ISBN 978-3-662-01898-9 , p. 855.
- ^ Carl Zerbe: Mineral oils and related products: Part 2, 2nd edition, Springer, 1969, ISBN 978-3-642-87510-6 , p. 593 ff.
- ↑ Entry on montan wax. In: Römpp Online . Georg Thieme Verlag, accessed on June 15, 2014.
- ↑ Robert Ebermann, Ibrahim Elmadfa: Textbook food chemistry and nutrition. 2nd edition, Springer, 2011, ISBN 978-3-7091-0210-7 , p. 696.
- ^ Johannes Karl Fink: A Concise Introduction to Additives for Thermoplastic Polymers. John Wiley & Sons, 2010, ISBN 978-0-470-60955-2 , p. 89.
- ↑ RÖMPP Lexikon Chemie. Volume 4: M-Pk. 10th edition. Georg Thieme Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-13-734910-9 , p. 2755.
- ↑ BT Fedoroff: Dictionary of explosives, ammunition and weapons. (German section), (= Picatinny arsenal technical report. No. 2510). Dover, New Jersey 1958, OCLC 832510988 .