Oil

::Cato the Elder, De Agri Cultura ::Lex Thoria ::Varro, (116–27) (Reate) De Re Rustica ::Cicero (106, Arpinum){{cite web|author1= John Ferguson|display-authors=et al.|date=4 December 2025|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cicero|title=Governors Cicero|work=Britannica}} ::Virgil, Aeneid ::Horace, Saturae ::Ovid, Tristia :CE / AD: ::Columella, ) De Re Rustica ::Pliny the Elder, (23 CE Transpadane Gaul - August 24, 79, Stabiae {{cite web|author= Jerry Stannard|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pliny-the-Elder|title=Pliny the Elder|work=Britannica}}) Naturalis Historia ::Juvenal, (AD 80, Aquinum {{cite book|author=James Sullivan|date=December 16, 2003 |editor=Frank N. Magill|url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Ancient_World/7NVFUi7G6TEC?hl=en&gbpv=1 ## Types ### Organic oils Organic oils are produced in remarkable diversity by plants, animals, and other organisms through natural metabolic processes. *Lipid* is the scientific term for the fatty acids, steroids and similar chemicals often found in the oils produced by living things, while oil refers to an overall mixture of chemicals. Organic oils may also contain chemicals other than lipids, including proteins, waxes (class of compounds with oil-like properties that are solid at common temperatures) and alkaloids. Lipids can be classified by the way that they are made by an organism, their chemical structure and their limited solubility in water compared to oils. They have a high carbon and hydrogen content and are considerably lacking in oxygen compared to other organic compounds and minerals; they tend to be relatively nonpolar molecules, but may include both polar and nonpolar regions as in the case of phospholipids and steroids. ### Mineral oils *Main article: Mineral oil* Crude oil, or petroleum, and its refined components, collectively termed *petrochemicals*, are crucial resources in the modern economy. Crude oil originates from ancient fossilized organic materials, such as zooplankton and algae, which geochemical processes convert into oil. ## Applications ### Cooking *Main article: Cooking oil* Edible vegetable and animal oils, as well as fats, are used for various purposes in cooking and food preparation. In particular, many foods are fried in oil much hotter than boiling water. Oils are also used for flavoring and for modifying the texture of foods (e.g. stir fry). Cooking oils are derived either from animal fat, as butter, lard and other types, or plant oils from olive, maize, sunflower and many other species. ### Cosmetics Oils are applied to hair to give it a lustrous look, to prevent tangles and roughness and to stabilize the hair to promote growth. See hair conditioner. ### Religion Oil has been used throughout history as a religious medium. It is often considered a spiritually purifying agent and is used for anointing purposes. As a particular example, holy anointing oil has been an important ritual liquid for Judaism and Christianity. ### Health Oils have been consumed since ancient times. Oils are rich in fats and may contain beneficial health properties. A good example is olive oil. Olive oil contains a high amount of fat, which is why it was also historically used for lighting in ancient Greece and Rome. So people would use it to bulk out food so they would have more energy to burn through the day. Olive oil was also used as a cleanser, as it helped retain moisture in the skin while drawing grime to the surface. It served as a primitive form of soap. It was applied on the skin then scrubbed off with a wooden stick pulling off the excess grime and creating a layer where new grime could form but be easily washed off in the water as oil is hydrophobic. Fish oils hold the omega-3 fatty acid. This fatty acid helps with inflammation and reduces fat in the bloodstream. ### Painting *Main article: Oil painting* Color pigments are easily suspended in oil, making it suitable as a supporting medium for paints. The oldest known extant oil paintings date from 650 AD. ### Heat transfer ===<!--Redirect points to this section--> Oils are used as coolants in oil cooling, for instance in electric transformers. Heat transfer oils are used both as coolants (see oil cooling), for heating (e.g. in oil heaters) and in other applications of heat transfer. ### Lubrication ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Motor_oil.jpg" caption="Synthetic motor oil"] :: Given that they are non-polar, oils do not easily adhere to other substances. This makes them useful as lubricants for various engineering purposes. Mineral oils are more commonly used as machine lubricants than biological oils are. Whale oil is preferred for lubricating clocks, because it does not evaporate, leaving dust, although its use was banned in the US in 1980. It is a long-running myth that spermaceti from whales has still been used in NASA projects such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the Voyager probe because of its extremely low freezing temperature. Spermaceti is not actually an oil, but a mixture mostly of wax esters, and there is no evidence that NASA has used whale oil. ### Fuel *Main article: Fuel oil* Some oils burn in liquid or aerosol form, generating light, and heat which can be used directly or converted into other forms of energy such as electricity or mechanical work. In order to obtain many fuel oils, crude oil is pumped from the ground and is shipped via oil tanker or a pipeline to an oil refinery. There, it is converted from crude oil to diesel fuel (petrodiesel), ethane (and other short-chain alkanes), fuel oils (heaviest of commercial fuels, used in ships/furnaces), gasoline (petrol), jet fuel, kerosene, benzene (historically), and liquefied petroleum gas. A 42 USgal barrel of crude oil produces approximately 10 USgal of diesel, 4 USgal of jet fuel, 19 USgal of gasoline, 7 USgal of other products, 3 USgal split between heavy fuel oil and liquified petroleum gases, and 2 USgal of heating oil. The total production of a barrel of crude into various products results in an increase to 45 USgal. In the 18th and 19th centuries, whale oil was commonly used for lamps, which was replaced with natural gas and then electricity. ### Chemical feedstock Crude oil can be refined into a wide variety of component hydrocarbons using fractional distillation. *Petrochemicals* are the refined components of crude oil and the chemical products made from them. They are used as detergents, fertilizers, medicines, paints, plastics, synthetic fibers, and synthetic rubber. Organic oils are another important chemical feedstock, especially in green chemistry. ## Notes ## References ## References 1. {{OED. oil 2. (2014). ["Bosworth Toller's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary online"](https://bosworthtoller.com/). *Faculty of Arts, [[Charles University]]*. 3. [[Oxford English Dictionary]]. ["oil noun¹ Meaning & use"](https://www.oed.com/dictionary/oil_n1?tl=true&tab=meaning_and_use). *[[Oxford University Press]]*. 4. ["Anglo-Irish poems of the Middle Ages: The Kildare Poems (Author: [unknown]) Poem 1 The Land of Cokaygne {MS fol 3r}"](https://celt.ucc.ie/published/E300000-001/text001.html). *[[Corpus of Electronic Texts]] [[University College Cork*. 5. Bella Millett. (9 August 2024). ["The Land of Cockaygne London MS Harley 913, ff. 3r-6v, Notes 45-46"](http://wpwt.soton.ac.uk/trans/cockaygn/cocnn.htm#45-6). *[[British Library]]: [[University of Southampton]] Wessex Parallel WebTexts*. 6. (14 June 2025). ["The Land of Cockaygne London MS Harley 913, ff. 3r-6v, Translation"](http://wpwt.soton.ac.uk/trans/cockaygn/coctrans.htm). *[[British Library]]: [[University of Southampton]] Wessex Parallel WebTexts}} {{web archive*. 7. C. L. Allen. (2006). ["Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World"](https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Concise_Encyclopedia_of_Languages_of_the/F2SRqDzB50wC?hl=en&gbpv=0). *[[Elsevier Science]]*. 8. (2020). ["A Dictionary of British and Irish History"](https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_Dictionary_of_British_and_Irish_Histor/Pt4IEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0). 9. (1924). ["Anglo-Norman lapidaries"](https://archive.org/details/AngloNormanLapidaries/studer-p-anglo-1924-RTL009603-LowRes/page/n7/mode/2up). *[[EDOUARD CHAMPION]] [[:fr:Édouard Champion*. 10. [[Prifysgol Aberystwyth]]. "The Anglo-Norman Dictionary". *Prifysgol Aberystwyth: anglo-norman.net*. 11. {{OEtymD. oil 12. {{L&S. oleum. ref 13. John Starks Jnr. ["THE PUNY PUNIC (Poenulus) BY Plautus Dramatis Personae)"](https://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~jstarks/punypunic.html). *[[binghamton.edu]]*. 14. {{LSJ. e)lai/a. ἐλαία. shortref. 15. Alberts, Bruce; Johnson, Alexander; Lewis, Julian; Raff, Martin; Roberts, Keith; Walter, Peter. ''Molecular Biology of the Cell''. New York: Garland Science, 2002, pp. 62, 118–119. 16. ["Which cooking oil is the healthiest?"](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200903-which-cooking-oil-is-the-healthiest). *BBC*. 17. Chesnutt, Randall D.. (January 2005). ["Perceptions of Oil in Early Judaism and the Meal Formula in Joseph and Aseneth"](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951820705051955). *Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha*. 18. (2008-10-11). ["Armenian priests journey for jars of holy oil"](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-oct-11-me-beliefs11-story.html). *Los Angeles Times*. 19. (January 2021). "Connections between Healthy Behaviour, Perception of Olive Oil Health Benefits, and Olive Oil Consumption Motives". *Sustainability*. 20. [http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/19/oldest-oil-painting.html "Oldest Oil Paintings Found in Afghanistan"], Rosella Lorenzi, Discovery News. February 19, 2008. {{webarchive. [link](https://web.archive.org/web/20110603234713/http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/19/oldest-oil-painting.html). (June 3, 2011) 21. ["Cuckoo Clock Questions"](http://www.frankenmuthclock.com/questionscuckoo.htm). *Frankenmuth Clock Company & Bavarian Clock Haus*. 22. ["Troubled waters: Who Would Believe NASA Used Whale Oil on Voyager and Hubble?"](https://ksj.mit.edu/tracker/2014/03/who-would-believe-nasa-used-whale-oil-vo/). *Knight Science Journalism at MIT*. 23. [link](https://web.archive.org/web/20180502160758/https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_home). (2018-05-02 — Retrieved 2011-10-02.) 24. ["Whale Oil"](http://www.petroleumhistory.org/OilHistory/pages/Whale/whale.html). *petroleumhistory.org*. 25. (2014-07-08). ["Oil Pollution in the Baltic Sea"](https://books.google.com/books?id=Eya6BQAAQBAJ&q=%C2%A0+Petrochemicals+are+refined+components+of+crude+oil&pg=PA2). *Springer*. ::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil) and is available under the [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the [article history page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil?action=history). ::