Naphtha

In some industries and regions, the name naphtha refers to crude oil or refined petroleum products such as kerosene or diesel fuel.

BC) tells how a "thick water" was put on a sacrifice at the time of Nehemiah and when the sun shone it caught fire.

The naphtha of antiquity is explained to be a "highly flammable light fraction of petroleum, an extremely volatile, strong-smelling, gaseous liquid, common in oil deposits of the Near East"; it was a chief ingredient in incendiary devices described by Latin authors of the Roman period.

Also, in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, Italy, Serbia, Slovenia, Macedonia nafta (нафта in Cyrillic) is colloquially used to indicate diesel fuel and crude oil.

Heavy naphtha boils between 90 °C and 200 °C and consists of molecules with 6–12 carbon atoms.Another source[17] which differentiates light and heavy comments on the hydrocarbon structure, but offers a less precise dividing line: Light [is] a mixture consisting mainly of straight-chained and cyclic aliphatic hydrocarbons having from five to six carbon atoms per molecule.

It is also a fuel for camping stoves and oil lanterns, known as "white gas", where naphtha's low boiling point makes it easy to ignite.

[23] As an internal combustion engine fuel, petroleum naphtha has seen very little use and suffers from lower efficiency and low octane ratings, typically 40 to 70 RON.

There is a possibility of using naphtha as a low-octane base fuel in an octane-on-demand concept, with the engine drawing a high-octane mix only when needed.

The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set the permissible exposure limit for naphtha in the workplace as 100 ppm (400 mg/m3) over an 8-hour workday.

The US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has set a recommended exposure limit (REL) of 100 ppm (400 mg/m3) over an 8-hour workday.

At levels of 1000 ppm, which equates to 10 times the lower exposure limit, naphtha is immediately dangerous to life and health.