Naphthenic acid by a general formula CH O, where "n" indicates the carbon number and "z" specifies a homologous series. The "z" is equal to 0 for saturated, acyclic acids and increases to 2 in monocyclic naphthenic acids, to 4 in bicyclic naphthenic acids, to 6 in tricyclic acids, and to 8 in tetracyclic acids. Salts of naphthenic acids, called naphthenates, are widely used as hydrophobic sources of metal ions in diverse applications.Aluminium salts of naphthenic acid and palmitic acid were combined during World War II to produce napalm. The word "napalm" is derived from the words naphthenic acid and palmitic acid.
Naphthenic acid from oil sands deposits." They found that "under worst-case exposure conditions, acute toxicity is unlikely in wild mammals exposed to naphthenic acids in AOS tailings pond water, but repeated exposure may have adverse health effects." In their 2002 article cited over 100 times, Rogers et al. reported on a solvent-based laboratory bench procedure developed to "efficiently extract naphthenic acids from bulk volumes of Athabasca oil sands tailings pond water (TPW)." Naphthenic acids are present in AOS tailings pond water (TPW) at an estimated concentration of 81 mg/l, too low a level for TPW to be considered a viable source for