Napalm Napalm Napalm is an incendiary mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical (usually gasoline (petrol) or diesel fuel). The title is a portmanteau of the names of two of the constituents of the original thickening and gelling agents: co-precipitated aluminium salts of naphthenic and palmitic acids. Napalm B is the more modern version of napalm (utilizing styrene derivatives) and, although distinctly different in its chemical composition, is often referred to simply as "napalm". Napalm was originally developed in 1942 in a secret laboratory at Harvard University, by a team led by chemist Louis Fieser under the United States
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