Palmitic acid World War II to produce napalm. The word "napalm" is derived from the words naphthenic acid and palmitic acid. Palmitic acid was discovered by Edmond Frémy in 1840, in saponified palm oil. This remains the primary industrial route for its production, with the triglycerides (fats) in palm oil being hydrolysed by high temperature water (above ), and the resulting mixture fractionally distilled to give the pure product. Palmitic acid is naturally produced by a wide range of other plants and organisms, typically at low levels. It is naturally present in butter, cheese, milk, and meat, as well as cocoa butter,
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