Biowaxes from Palm Oil as Promising Candidates for Cosmetic Matrices and Pharmaceuticals for Human Use.

The production of waxes from vegetable oils, such as palm oil, for use as a base material in products for human applications is an alternative to those derived from petroleum and animals. Seven palm oil-derived waxes, called biowaxes (BW1-BW7) in this work, were obtained by catalytic hydrotreating of refined and bleached African palm oil and refined palm kernel oil. They were characterized by three properties: compositional, physicochemical (melting point, penetration value, and pH), and biological (sterility, cytotoxicity, phototoxicity, antioxidant, and irritant).

Prediction of the total acid number (TAN) of colombian crude oils via ATR-FTIR spectroscopy and chemometric methods.

Reactions as the attack by naphthenic and hydrogen sulfide have caused corrosion problems in the petroleum industry due to they affect the crude oil heating furnaces and distillation towers at temperatures between 220 and 400 °C. The total acid number (TAN) measurement has been used as a test to quantify the acid compounds in crude oils and has shown to be a reliable indicator of their corrosion degree. However, the standard method for the TAN measurement, ASTM D-644, involves long times, environment unfriendly wastes and high costs for each analysis.