Toxic effects of burning liquid paraffin

i thought i would start my very first post with a question that has worried me for years.

Basically, I wonder what the effects are of breathing in combusted paraffin fuel from vapourised or wick burnt paraffin. This issues affects everybody here (except the meths burners !!) so I would be very grateful to hear of your views and experiences.

Adequate ventilation is not really my issue. Like it or not, if you share living space with something burning fuel, sooner or later you will have some of it in your lungs and it will accumulate over time. I cant help but wonder what happened when most people relied upon liquid paraffin for heating and cooking in this country. The last generation who used paraffin every day did not seem to die off as a result and many of them are still alive well into their old ages and the fuel they used was not as refined as the fuel sold today !!!

Running wick heaters for hours on end does not seem to give me any health problems other than the light smell. I remember using bottled calor butane portable heaters years ago and they always made me feel a bit sick after a few hours not to mention the odd headache. Again, there is only so much you can do to ventilate a room.

It would be very interesting if anybody reading this actually knows the products produced in the air by combusted paraffin.

Thanks for letting me join, I have been a fan of this great resource for a long time.

jon

 

Jon, each fuel has its own composition and here in the US you can check on the material data sheets for its toxic effect and as you have already said those that use parrafin as fuel have grown into a ripe old age. I would say excessive or continued use would effect your health and I mean being exposed 24/7 as with any industry. But for just an hour or two at 3x daily for cooking meals in my opinion would not drastically affect your health. As for the nauseating effect, some people are not just use to the smell. Likewise, a tuned stove should not produce much smell or toxic particles but am not an expert on the subject.

Ron

 

I think it is one of those things.
Everything in moderation.

I am sure if you drank gallons of milk everyday you would have health problems.

But still it is a great question. I will have to look into it.

ATB,
Jeff

 

isnt kero used as a medicine of some sort.
I agree though with the comment on gas though Lpg combustion fumes can be nauseating in excess but kero is a nice smell. Pressure stoves make little or no smell and wick heaters only do when they are warming up

 

as far as i know kerosene is poisonous, by swallowing, inhalation or absorbtion through the skin

i believe homeopaths have used kerosene, so if you consider homeopathic remedies to be medicine then the answer is yes but even that has caused poisoning

it gets confusing because we call kerosene paraffin in the uk

there is a whole group of chemicals known as "paraffins" though this may be an archaic name for them and they include liquids and waxes which are used in medicine as laxatives and bases for ointments.

kerosene is not one of these "paraffins"

as for the effect of inhaling burnt kerosene fumes i can only guess it depends on how complete the combustion is, carbon monoxide is a lethal poison and carbon particles inhaled might have long term effects on the lungs

i regret that i quit chemistry at 16 to study physics and engineering and this has left major gaps in my understanding of the world

but there must be someone out there with better understanding who can give a complete answer to this question, a pharmacist or doctor perhaps

now that "low odour kerosene" is available in the uk i intend to get some to try as stove fuel so i would like to see a thorough consideration of this topic, right here and as soon as possible please

 

Jon
Welcome to the forum.

I think you've answered most of your own questions.

Provided you get complete combustion (don't know if that's possible) when burning a hydrocarbon fuel in oxygen the by-product is CO2, I think.

There are a number of members with a chemical background that will be along shortly to give you a long and interesting explanation I feel sure.

 

Try google or wiki

 

e's back! where have you been? where did you get the personalised number plate?

 

CO2 and water are the main by products of burning paraffin IIRC

 

Maybe you mean 'liquid paraffin' which is used for medicinal purposes - to relieve constipation IIRC...

However, 'liquid paraffin' is POSITIVELY NOT the same thing as paraffin / kerosene. Kerosene is toxic and you definitely do not want to be taking it into, or applying it to, your body for any reason whatsoever...

Oh, and don't be putting liquid paraffin into your stoves, 'cos that won't work either!

 

have you tried it?

all the paraffins can be used as fuels,
methane, ethane, propane, butane and on through the liquids and waxes

 

holy cow!!!!

i just googled paraffin and there is stuff about penile paraffinoma and the scrotal injection of automobile transmission fluid.

i wish i hadn't looked
please don't try that at home

 

In South Texas we kept a 55 gallon barrel of kerosene for pear burners...to burn the thorns of cactus so cattle could eat it...mainly during late fall and winter or when grass/hay were scarce. Ranchers use the word "pear" for cactus. It was also the only disinfectant we used when we neutered/castrated hogs...it was poured into the empty wound and they would immediately go to a mudhole to soothe it. I'm not sure of its medicinal qualities, but we never lost a pig from castration.

 

Hi Henry, don't forget that the other main product of combustion, when burning any hydro-carbon, is water.
For every gallon of paraffin burnt you produce an equivalent volume of water, which is another reason for good ventilation, if you don't want a very damp home.

Best Regards,
Kerophile.

 

Yes and that will be true for complete combustion of any pure hydrocarbon fuel (gas or liquid). But the main culprit is probably not unburned kerosene but other combustion products. Combustion is a very complex series of reactions and trace amounts of all kinds of exotic carbon compounds will be generated in various amounts. I think carbon "buckyballs" were first isolated from soot. In addition air is mainly nitrogen and while largely inert, small amount of NOx compounds are probably generated. Of course trace impurities such as sulfur in the fuel will also generate various compounds. But all of these should be in very small amounts and unless there is visible soot or inadequate oxygen I don't think one needs to worry about it. However, if you notice symptoms such as a headache, there is probably something seriously wrong.

I do think the biggest misconception (on the internet at least) is that low pressure alcohol stoves are cleaner burning than kerosene or Coleman fueled stoves. A major product of incomplete combustion of alchohol (ethanol or methanol) will be aldehydes (such as formaldehyde) and that is not healthy to breath.

 

I also read somewhere that candles throw off a lot more CO2 than wick lanterns.

When you think back years ago to when people heated cold damp homes with paraffin heaters they were often making the houses damper.

 

Nope - didn't need to because I already knew it's not sufficiently volatile to burn in a stove.

I presume you couldn't work it out for yourself beforehand, so tell us what happened when you tried to use wax as a fuel in a stove.

Then again, don't bother - I think we've figured it out already...

 

so you haven't tried it but you "know"
paraffin wax isn't volatile until you put a wick in it, i think they call it a candle

 

Yes, in the same way I "know", for example, not to bridge the terminals in a consumer unit with my fingers...

 

that liquid paraffin is bit pricey - nearly as much as coleman fuel

i got a 111t tank and burner with a kerosene jet so i will give it a go and see what happens

like to keep an open mind

now, i did say the paraffins make good fuels, gases, liquids and waxes
of course not all fuels get burned in pressure stoves

however, if i melt some paraffin wax candles and pour that in the 111t tank it will set solid

maybe a hot water jacket around the tank would keep the wax molten enough to get to the burner
ever notice how runny the top of a candle gets when it's lit?

one step at a time, rome wasn't burnt in a day