Wax as heat source fuel

I recently conducted a little experiment in my backyard last night.. and what I acheived kept my mind turning for many hours ;p

Anyhow, what I did was pour about 2 tsbs of lamp oil into a big candle that was in a metal bucket. (Think of those huge mosquito candles)

Anyhow, what happened I didnt expect.. I was expecting the oil to burn up through the wick as if it were in a normal lamp-wic..

Well, after about 5 mins, the oil heated up the wax to roughly 400 degrees and ignited the wax (flashpoint). After shrugging it off, and moving it a little farther away from me and my buds (latenight + poker + outside = fun) We played on into the night.. about 4 hours later, after the poker party was over, the candle was still burning.. and not even half way melted... but nonetheless VERY very hot. I'm assuming that the wax and metal bucket acheived 400~degrees since the flame would NOT go out. I put a cooking pot lid over it, waiting 5 mins, took it off and it would still reignite.. flashpoint of wax is roughly 375-400 degrees.

Anyhow, it got my wheels turning, and of the potentials of wax as a heat source fuel.. not actual fuel used to run our engines, but fuel that feeds a heat source

I'm still not sure how hot the wax burns, since I dont have a therometer big enough to gadge it, but I know the results are replicable, I did 3 times over the past 2 days showing friends just how hot it really got

One thing I know, is the type of wax I was burning was dirty, and that Soy based waxes burn clean, at just a slightly higher flashpoint (~100 degrees more)

I'll figure out the temperature tomarrow, my dad has a nifty electronic therometer that goes well into the 1000's

Wonder if the candle-bomb has enough btu's of heat to steam water?




Quick, someone with the resources build it ;p

[edit on 7/4/2005 by QuietSoul]

maybe there is something we dont know that all the other users do, i find this very interesting -wondering why no one has responded yet. but keep on experimenting with that, i am interested.

Wax is just a solidified hydrocarbon... just like we burn (fuel oil, etc, etc.) Wax isn't quite hot enough for energy purposes, though it's good for other things.

Here in Texas, we have the Candelilla plant which has a high enough wax content that it was used for candle wax (which is how it got its name.)
www.visitbigbend.com...

Oh... we also generally don't burn waxes because they're much less dense than oils... so you need a MUCH bigger tanker to transport (say) 100 tons of wax than you do to transport 100 tons of fuel oil.

[edit on 4-7-2005 by Byrd]

So did you record the temp of it yet?

Not to be a pessimist or negative but I cant imagine that someone wouldn’t have fully realized the potential of wax by now, or it being more potent or efficient than say oil, but you never know.

If I understand this correctly you suggest using wax not as the actual fuel, but as a way to generate fuel in a way like turning water into steam as you envisioned. So do you think wax could generate heat to boil water more efficiently than conventional fuels like gas or oil?

Its simply not effecient enough.

Wax doesnt burn hot enough for most use's.

It is not as controllable as other sources. (Heated area, constant temperature)

It is MUCH harder to handle then liquid fuels.

It would take a much larger and thus more expensive facility to harness the heat produced from wax into enough steam to turn a large turbine.

In all things needed from a largely used fuel source it falls behind what we use today. Quite far behind.

To make it a viable energy source you will have to solve all of those problems. I haven't done the research so I wont say it's impossible, but highly unlikely since wax has been used for many generations and I would think one of those user's would have overcame the problems if it was possible.