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 mixture of petroleum-based acids when the analytical methods available in the early 1900s could identify only a few naphthene-type components with accuracy. Today "naphthenic" acid is used in a more generic sense to refer to all of the carboxylic acids present in petroleum, whether cyclic, acyclic, or aromatic compounds, and carboxylic acids containing heteroatoms such as N and S. Although commercial naphthenic acids often contain a majority of cycloaliphatic acids, multiple studies have shown they also contain straight chain and branched aliphatic acids and aromatic acids; some naphthenic acids contain >50% combined aliphatic and aromatic acids. Naphthenic acids are represented