Editing Kerosene (section)

== History ==
[[File:Kerosene queue.jpg|thumb|A queue for kerosene. Moscow, Russia, 1920s]]
{{See also|Coal oil}}

The process of distilling crude oil/petroleum into kerosene, as well as other hydrocarbon compounds, was first written about in the ninth century by the Persian scholar [[Rhazes|Rāzi]] (or Rhazes). In his ''Kitab al-Asrar'' (''Book of Secrets''), the physician and chemist Razi described two methods for the production of kerosene, termed ''naft abyad'' (نفط ابيض "white naphtha"), using an apparatus called an [[alembic]]. One method used [[clay]] as an [[absorption (chemistry)|absorbent]], and later the other method using chemicals like [[ammonium chloride]] (''sal ammoniac''). The distillation process was repeated until most of the volatile hydrocarbon fractions had been removed and the final product was perfectly clear and safe to burn. Kerosene was also produced during the same period from [[oil shale]] and [[bitumen]] by heating the rock to extract the oil, which was then distilled.<ref>{{cite journal
| last = Bilkadi
| first = Zayn
| title = The Oil Weapons
| journal = [[Saudi Aramco World]]
| volume = 46
| issue = 1
| pages = 20–27
| url = http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199501/the.oil.weapons.htm
| access-date = 13 February 2009
| archive-date = 9 June 2011
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110609223628/http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199501/the.oil.weapons.htm
| url-status = dead
}}</ref> During the Chinese [[Ming Dynasty]], the Chinese made use of kerosene through extracting and purifying petroleum and then converted it into lamp fuel.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Chinese Oil Industry: History and Future |last1=Feng |first1=Lianyong  |last2=Hu |first2=Yan  |last3=Hall |first3=Charles A. S |last4=Wang |first4=Jianliang  |publisher=Springer |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-4419-9409-7 |publication-date=28 November 2012 |page=2}}</ref> The Chinese made use of petroleum for lighting lamps and heating homes as early as 1500 BC.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Practical Advances in Petroleum Processing |last1= Chang |first1= Samuel Hsu |last2=Robinson |first2=Paul R. |publisher=Springer |year=2006 |volume=1 |page=2|bibcode= 2006papp.book.....H }}</ref>

===Illuminating oil from coal and oil shale===
[[File:Abraham Gesner Photo.png|thumb|left|[[Abraham Pineo Gesner|Abraham Gesner]] distilled kerosene from bituminous coal and oil shale experimentally in 1846; commercial production followed in 1854.]]
Although "coal oil" was well known by industrial chemists at least as early as the 1700s as a byproduct of making [[coal gas]] and coal tar, it burned with a smoky flame that prevented its use for indoor illumination. In cities, much indoor illumination was provided by piped-in [[coal gas]], but outside the cities, and for spot lighting within the cities, the lucrative market for fueling indoor lamps was supplied by [[whale oil]], specifically that from [[sperm whale]]s, which burned brighter and cleaner.<ref name=GlobeAndMail2019-10-04/><ref>Samuel T. Pees, [http://www.petroleumhistory.org/OilHistory/pages/Whale/whale.html Whale oil versus the others] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180104151055/http://www.petroleumhistory.org/OilHistory/pages/Whale/whale.html |date=4 January 2018 }}, Petroleum History Institute, accessed 17 November 2014.</ref>

Canadian geologist [[Abraham Pineo Gesner]] claimed that in 1846, he had given a public demonstration in [[Charlottetown]], [[Prince Edward Island]] of a new process he had discovered.<ref name=GlobeAndMail2019-10-04/><ref group=note>In his book of 1861 and its second edition of 1865, Gesner claimed to have demonstrated ''liquid'' kerosene – an "oil" – in 1846 during his public lectures on Prince Edward's Island.  
*  Gesner, Abraham (1861) [https://archive.org/stream/apracticaltreat02gesngoog#page/n16/mode/2up ''A Practical Treatise on Coal, Petroleum, and Other Distilled Oils.'']  New York, New York, USA:  Bailliere Brothers, p. 9.
*  Gesner, Abraham; Gesner, George Weltden (1865) [https://books.google.com/books?id=KTkKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA9 ''A Practical Treatise on Coal, Petroleum, and Other Distilled Oils''], 2nd ed., New York, New York, USA:  Bailliere Brothers, p. 9.
However, John Butt characterized Gesner's book as " … a piece of propaganda designed to get people to believe that he had been constantly interested in inventing burning oil from 1846 to 1854".  Butt also stated that "No independent documentary proof has ever been produced to support Gesner's claim."   Furthermore, "He [Gesner] omitted to mention that kerosene had first been used to describe an illuminating gas."
* Butt, John (1963) [http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3894/1/1963ButtPhD.pdf "James Young, Scottish Industrialist and Philanthropist"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225095733/http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3894/1/1963ButtPhD.pdf |date=25 February 2021 }} PhD thesis (University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK), p. 227.
As late as 1850, Gesner promoted his "kerosene" as an illuminating ''gas'':  
* In his U.S. patent of 1850, Gesner called the product of his distillations an "illuminating gas", not an oil:  Gesner, Abraham [http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00007052 "Manufacture of illuminating-gas from bitumen"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224124608/https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00007052 |date=24 February 2021 }} U.S. Patent no. 7,052 (issued: 29 January 1850).
* In his prospectus of 1850, Gesner repeatedly identified "kerosene" as a ''gas'', not an oil:  Gesner, Abraham (1850) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=aeu.ark:/13960/t9960mm6j;view=1up;seq=7 "Prospectus of Gesner's patent kerosene gas, obtained from bitumen, asphaltum, or mineral pitch"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210301004556/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=aeu.ark:/13960/t9960mm6j;view=1up;seq=7 |date=1 March 2021 }} New York, New York, USA:  Trehern & Williamson.</ref> He heated coal in a [[retort]], and distilled from it a clear, thin fluid that he showed made an excellent lamp fuel. He coined the name "kerosene" for his fuel, a contraction of ''keroselaion'', meaning ''wax-oil''.<ref name="russell" >{{Cite book
| last = Russell  | first = Loris S.
| title = A Heritage of Light: Lamps and Lighting in the Early Canadian Home
| publisher = University of Toronto Press
| year = 2003
| isbn = 978-0-8020-3765-7
}}</ref> The cost of extracting kerosene from coal was high.

Gesner recalled from his extensive knowledge of [[New Brunswick]]'s geology a naturally occurring [[Bitumen|asphalt]]um called [[albertite]]. He was blocked from using it by the New Brunswick coal conglomerate because they had coal extraction rights for the province, and he lost a court case when their experts claimed albertite was a form of coal.<ref>{{Cite book
| last = Black
| first = Harry
| title = Canadian Scientists and Inventors
| publisher = Pembroke Publishers
| year = 1997
| isbn = 978-1-55138-081-0
| url-access = registration
| url = https://archive.org/details/canadianscientis0000blac
}}</ref> In 1854, Gesner moved to [[Newtown Creek]], [[Long Island]], [[New York (state)|New York]]. There, he secured backing from a group of businessmen. They formed the North American Gas Light Company, to which he assigned his patents.

Despite clear priority of discovery, Gesner did not obtain his first kerosene patent until 1854, two years after [[James Young (chemist)|James Young]]'s United States patent.<ref>Gesner, Abraham, "Improvement in kerosene burning-fluids", U.S. Patent no.s [http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00011203 11,203] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612113021/http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00011203 |date=12 June 2018 }}; [http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00011204 11,204] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612112937/http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00011204 |date=12 June 2018 }}; [http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00011205 11,205] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612112812/http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00011205 |date=12 June 2018 }} (issued:  27 June 1854).</ref><ref>Young, James, [http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=00008833 "Improvement in making paraffine-oil"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612112810/http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=00008833 |date=12 June 2018 }} U.S. Patent no. 8,833 (issued:  23 March 1852).</ref> Gesner's method of purifying the distillation products appears to have been superior to Young's, resulting in a cleaner and better-smelling fuel. Manufacture of kerosene under the Gesner patents began in New York in 1854 and later in [[Boston]]—being distilled from [[bituminous coal]] and [[oil shale]].<ref name=russell/> Gesner registered the word "Kerosene" as a trademark in 1854, and for several years, only the North American Gas Light Company and the Downer Company (to which Gesner had granted the right) were allowed to call their lamp oil "Kerosene" in the United States.<ref>{{Cite book
| last = Asbury
| first = Herbert
| title = The golden flood: an informal history of America's first oil field
| publisher = Alfred A. Knopf
| year = 1942
| page = 35
}}</ref>

In 1848, [[Scotland|Scottish]] [[chemist]] [[James Young (chemist)|James Young]] experimented with oil discovered seeping in a coal mine as a source of lubricating oil and illuminating fuel. When the seep became exhausted, he experimented with the dry distillation of coal, especially the resinous "boghead coal" ([[torbanite]]). He extracted a number of useful liquids from it, one of which he named ''paraffine oil'' because at low temperatures, it congealed into a substance that resembled paraffin wax. Young took out a patent on his process and the resulting products in 1850, and built the first truly commercial oil-works in the world at [[Bathgate]] in 1851, using oil extracted from locally mined torbanite, shale, and bituminous coal. In 1852, he took out a United States patent for the same invention. These patents were subsequently upheld in both countries in a series of lawsuits, and other producers were obliged to pay him royalties.<ref name=russell/>

===Kerosene from petroleum===
In 1851, [[Samuel Martin Kier]] began selling lamp oil to local miners, under the name "Carbon Oil". He distilled this from [[crude oil]] by a process of his own invention. He also invented a new lamp to burn his product.<ref Name="Pioneer" >{{Cite book
| title =Greater Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, Past, Present, Future; The Pioneer Oil Refiner
| publisher =The American Manufacturer and Iron World
| year=1901
| url =https://books.google.com/books?id=lkcVAAAAYAAJ&q=refinery+kier+pittsburgh&pg=PT57
| author1 =World, American Manufacturer and Iron
}}</ref> He has been dubbed the ''Grandfather of the American Oil Industry'' by historians.<ref Name="McInnis" >{{cite web
| last = McInnis
| first = Karen
| title = Kier, Samuel Martin- Bio
| work = biography
| publisher = The Pennsylvania State University
| url = http://www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Kier__Samuel_Martin.html
| access-date = 12 December 2008
| archive-date = 13 June 2010
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100613130838/http://www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Kier__Samuel_Martin.html

}}</ref> Kier's [[salt well]]s began to be fouled with [[petroleum]] in the 1840s. At first, Kier simply dumped the oil into the nearby [[Pennsylvania Main Line Canal]] as useless waste, but later he began experimenting with several distillates of the crude oil, along with a chemist from eastern Pennsylvania.<ref Name="Harper">{{Cite journal
 |last        = Harper
 |first       = J. A.
 |title       = Samuel Kier&nbsp;– Medicine Man & Refiner
 |format      = Excerpt from Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of Unrefined Complex Liquid Hydrocarbons
 |journal     = Pennsylvania Geology
 |volume      = 26
 |issue       = 1
 |publisher   = Oil Region Alliance of Business, Industry & Tourism
 |year        = 1995
 |url         = http://www.oil150.com/essays/2007/02/samual-kier
 |access-date  = 12 December 2008
 
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20120315221502/http://www.oil150.com/essays/2007/02/samual-kier
 |archive-date = 15 March 2012
 }}</ref>

[[Ignacy Łukasiewicz]], a [[Poland|Polish]] pharmacist residing in [[Lviv]], and his partner {{interlanguage link|Jan Zeh|pl}} had been experimenting with different distillation techniques, trying to improve on Gesner's kerosene process, but using [[petroleum|oil]] from a local [[petroleum seep]]. Many people knew of his work, but paid little attention to it. On the night of 31 July 1853, doctors at the local hospital needed to perform an emergency operation, virtually impossible by candlelight. They therefore sent a messenger for Łukasiewicz and his new lamps. The lamp burned so brightly and cleanly that the hospital officials ordered several lamps plus a large supply of fuel. Łukasiewicz realized the potential of his work and quit the pharmacy to find a business partner, and then traveled to [[Vienna]] to register his technique with the government. Łukasiewicz moved to the [[Gorlice]] region of Poland in 1854, and sank several wells across southern Poland over the following decade, setting up a refinery near [[Jasło]] in 1859.<ref>{{Cite book
| last1 = Steil  |first1 = Tim
| last2 = Luning  |first2=Jim
| title = Fantastic Filling Stations
| publisher = MBI Publishing
| year= 2002
| pages = 19–20
| isbn = 978-0-7603-1064-9
}}</ref>

The petroleum discovery by [[Edwin Drake]] {{ndash}} [[Drake Well]] {{ndash}} in western Pennsylvania in 1859 caused a great deal of public excitement and investment drilling in new wells, not only in Pennsylvania, but also in Canada, where petroleum had been discovered at [[Oil Springs, Ontario]] in 1858, and southern Poland, where Ignacy Łukasiewicz had been distilling lamp oil from petroleum seeps since 1852. The increased supply of petroleum allowed oil refiners to entirely side-step the oil-from-coal patents of both Young and Gesner, and produce illuminating oil from petroleum without paying royalties to anyone. As a result, the illuminating oil industry in the United States completely switched over to petroleum in the 1860s. The petroleum-based illuminating oil was widely sold as Kerosene, and the trade name soon lost its proprietary status, and became the lower-case generic product "kerosene".<ref>{{cite book|author=Paul Lucier|title=Scientists and Swindlers: Consulting on Coal and Oil in America, 1820–1890|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fNsKrN56RKEC&pg=PA161|year=2008|publisher=JHU Press|location=Baltimore|isbn=978-1-4214-0285-7|pages=232–233}}</ref> Because Gesner's original Kerosene had been also known as "coal oil", generic kerosene from petroleum was commonly called "coal oil" in some parts of the United States well into the 20th century.

In the United Kingdom, manufacturing oil from coal (or oil shale) continued into the early 20th century, although increasingly overshadowed by petroleum oils.

As kerosene production increased, whaling declined. The [[Whaling in the United States|American whaling fleet]], which had been steadily growing for 50 years, reached its all-time peak of 199 ships in 1858. By 1860, just two years later, the fleet had dropped to 167 ships. The Civil War cut into American whaling temporarily, but only 105 whaling ships returned to sea in 1866, the first full year of peace, and that number dwindled until only 39 American ships set out to hunt whales in 1876.<ref>United States Bureau of the Census, 1960, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957, p.445.</ref> Kerosene, made first from coal and oil shale, then from petroleum, had largely taken over whaling's lucrative market in lamp oil.

Electric lighting started displacing kerosene as an illuminant in the late 19th century, especially in urban areas. However, kerosene remained the predominant commercial end-use for petroleum refined in the United States until 1909, when it was exceeded by motor fuels. The rise of the gasoline-powered automobile in the early 20th century created a demand for the lighter hydrocarbon fractions, and refiners invented methods to increase their output of gasoline, while decreasing their output of kerosene. In addition, some of the heavier hydrocarbons that previously went into kerosene were incorporated into diesel fuel. Kerosene kept some market share by being increasingly used in stoves and portable heaters.<ref>[[Harold F. Williamson]] and others, ''The American Petroleum Industry: the Age of Energy, 1899–1959'' (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1963) 170, 172, 194, 204.</ref>

=== Kerosene from carbon dioxide and water ===
A pilot project by [[ETH Zurich]] used [[solar power]] to produce kerosene from carbon dioxide and water in July 2022. The product can be used in existing aviation applications, and "can also be blended with fossil-derived kerosene".<ref>{{Cite web |date=21 July 2022 |title=All-in-one solar-powered tower makes carbon-neutral kerosene in the field at pilot-scale |url=https://www.greencarcongress.com/2022/07/20220721-zoller.html |access-date=2022-07-24 |website=Green Car Congress |archive-date=24 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220724151751/https://www.greencarcongress.com/2022/07/20220721-zoller.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Zoller |first1=Stefan |last2=Koepf |first2=Erik |last3=Nizamian |first3=Dustin |last4=Stephan |first4=Marco |last5=Patané |first5=Adriano |last6=Haueter |first6=Philipp |last7=Romero |first7=Manuel |last8=González-Aguilar |first8=José |last9=Lieftink |first9=Dick |last10=de Wit |first10=Ellart |last11=Brendelberger |first11=Stefan |date=2022 |title=A solar tower fuel plant for the thermochemical production of kerosene from H2O and CO2 |journal=Joule |language=en |volume=6 |issue=7 |pages=1606–1616 |doi=10.1016/j.joule.2022.06.012 |pmc=9332358 |pmid=35915707}}</ref>