Re: What would we in the UK call kerosene?
Kerosine, also spelled KEROSENE, also called PARAFFIN, PARAFFIN OIL, or COAL OIL, flammable pale-yellow or colourless oily liquid with a not unpleasant, characteristic odour.<br />It is obtained from petroleum and used for burning in lamps and domestic heaters or furnaces, as a fuel or fuel component for jet engines, and as a solvent for greases and insecticides.<br />Kerosine accounts for between 10 and 25 per-cent of the total volume of crude petroleum. It is separated physically from the other portions by fractional distillation. It can also be produced chemically by cracking, or decomposing, the less volatile portions of mineral oils at atmospheric pressure and elevated temperatures.<br />Kerosine was first manufactured in the 1850’s from coal tar and shale oils, but petroleum became the major source after 1859 when E. L. Drake drilled the first petroleum well in Pennsylvania. Because of its use in lamps, kerosene was the major refinery product until the automobile made gasoline important.<br />Chemically, kerosene is a mixture of hydrocarbons; the chemical composition depends on its source, but usually it consists of about 10 different hydrocarbons, each containing from 10 to 16 carbon atoms per molecule; the constituents include n-dodecane, alkyl benzines, and naphthalene and its derivatives. Kerosine is less volatile than gasoline; it boils between about 140 and 320 degrees C (285 and 610 degrees F).<br /><br />Taken from “The Encyclopaedia Britannica”<br /><br />Ross
