It was originally used to describe the complex mixture of petroleum-based acids when the analytical methods available in the early 1900s could identify only a few naphthene-type components with accuracy.

[7] Commercial grades of naphthenic acid are most often recovered from kerosene/jet fuel and diesel fractions, where their corrosivity[6] and negative impact on burning qualities require their removal.

Metal naphthenates are not well defined in conventional chemical sense because they are a complex mixture rather than a specific single component, structure or formula.

Industrially useful naphthenates include those of aluminium, magnesium, calcium, barium, cobalt, copper, lead, manganese, nickel, vanadium, and zinc.

Their industrial applications exploits this property, where they are used as oil-borne detergents, lubricants, corrosion inhibitors, fuel and lubricating oil additives, wood preservatives, insecticides, fungicides, acaricides, wetting agents, oil drying agents (driers) used in oil-based paint and wood surface treatment including varnish.

Industrially useful metal naphthenates include those of aluminum, barium, calcium, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, magnesium manganese, nickel, potassium, vanadium, zinc, and zirconium.

[17] It has been stated that "naphthenic acids are the most significant environmental contaminants resulting from petroleum extraction from oil sands deposits."

"[18] Naphthenic acids are present in Athabasca oil sands and tailings pond water at an estimated concentration of 81 mg/L[19] Using Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] protocols for testing toxicity, refined NAs are not acutely genotoxic to mammals.