Fun Fact #340 Naphtha

 Fun Fact # 340

    Naphtha

Around 680AD, a refugee from Damascus named Kallinikos, fled to the Byzantine Empire. Here he would share a way to distill crude oil by mixing in clay, heating it, then straining it out. This would remove the color, sulfur, and other impurities. If completed enough times this would lead to a clear flammable liquid that could burn on water and be a pain reliever when used topically. He called this miricale oil: Napantha (Now known as Kerosene) and used it to help wage war on Byzantine's behalf often being mistaken for Greek Fire. 

Later in 1870, John D. Rockefeller would come across this way of distillation and began messing with the different chemical properties of clay to create predictable variations of the liquid. This allowed him not only to use oil fields traditionally thought unusable, but also discover new products which he would market under his company “Standard Oil”. Over time he would use these resources to build one of the first Monopolies in the US, and lead the first energy boom, in lighting and heating homes. 

Today smaller refineries still use the clay method for distilling kerosene thanks to its low cost and customizability, however it does have a drawback in leaving particles floating in the fuel. 

Sources: Ceptechnology. Com and the January 1995 issue of Aramcoworld.