Cobalt(II) naphthenate Cobalt(II) naphthenate Cobalt(II) naphthenate is a mixture of cobalt(II) derivatives of naphthenic acids. These coordination complexes are widely used as oil drying agents for the autoxidative crosslinking of drying oils. Metal naphthenates are not well defined in conventional chemical sense that they are mixtures. They are widely employed catalysts because they are soluble in the nonpolar substrates, such as the alkyd resins or linseed oil. The fact that naphthenates are mixtures helps to confer high solubility. A second virtue of these species is their low cost. A well-defined compound that exhibits many of the properties of cobalt naphthenate is the
Chemical element Chemical element A chemical element is a species of atoms having the same number of protons in their atomic nuclei (that is, the same atomic number, or "Z"). For example, the atomic number of oxygen is 8, so the element oxygen consists of all atoms which have exactly 8 protons. 118 elements have been identified, of which the first 94 occur naturally on Earth with the remaining 24 being synthetic elements. There are 80 elements that have at least one stable isotope and 38 that have exclusively radionuclides, which decay over time into other elements. Iron is the most abundant