From: "Dave Cushman" <dave.cushman@lineone.net>
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 10:43:31 -0000
To: <BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: Clean Wax for Organic Production

Hi all

Now here is a bit of conjecture.

John's thin sheets exposed to the sun started me thinking... We already have a technique that may be of assistance. In the past dark wax has been lightened by warming the wax over water at just below boiling and then hydrogen peroxide is added, which boils forming very small bubbles that rise through the molten wax.

This "wets" water soluble particles that were suspended in the wax and
allows them to seperate. There is also a bleaching action as the "spare"
oxygen is released.

If we apply this process to our wax that we suspect may have contamination:-

We have heat that will drive off volatile components.

We have a thorough wetting that will leach out water soluble particles.

We have a bleaching action caused by the breakdown of H2O2 into water and
oxygen. The spare oxygen at the high temperature may oxidise some of our
contaminants and the water solubility of the oxidised material may be
greater than before.

Another method used for cleaning wax is melting and admixture of "Bentonite" particles followed by filtration under pressure.

A third method that is used is filtration through a filter bed that is made
of "diatomaceous earth".

The filtrations will not remove aything that is chemically attached to the
wax molecules. But if microscopic resin beads are added that have a stronger affinity for the contaminants than the wax has we can filter out the beads and attached trash by the methods mentioned above.

The above is very much "thinking out loud" perhaps someone with chemical
knowledge could put some "flesh on the bones". This seems too easy to
me...Where have I gone Wrong?

Regards From:- Dave Cushman, G8MZY