An oil can for a Singer sewing machine

Oil can used to store household lamp oil (1882)

An oil can (oilcan or oiler)^[1] is a can that holds oil (usually motor oil) for lubricating machines. An oil can can also be used to fill oil-based lanterns. An occupation, referred to as an oiler, can use an oil can (among other tools) to lubricate machinery.

Oil cans were made by companies like Noera Manufacturing Company and Perfection in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.^[1] Around this time, oil cans frequently leaked and contributed to fires.^[2] In 1957, aluminium oil cans were introduced, produced by companies like the American Can Company.^[3]

Rocanville, Saskatchewan, Canada is home to a large-scale oil can because of the Symons Oiler factory which produced oil cans during World War II.

Design[link]

Oil cans come in a variety of designs, from a simple cylindrical disposable can opened with a churchkey (or with a spout), to a hemisphere base and tapered straight spout to more intricate designs with handles and push-buttons, to the modern plastic bottle. In 2000, the 3-In-One Oil can was redesigned to look like the early 20th century design (hemisphere base with tapered straight spout).^[4][5]

Popular culture[link]

• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), by L. Frank Baum, is a children's novel in which Dorothy uses an oil can to lubricate a rusted tin man
• Oil Can Harry, a cartoon villain of Fanny Zilch (in the 1930s Terrytoons series) and Pearl Pureheart (in the 1955-67 Mighty Mouse series)
• Oil Can Boyd (Dennis Ray Boyd, b. 1959), former starting pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, nicknamed from his beer-drinking days in Mississippi where beer is referred to as "oil"
• Oil Can Classics, a revision of the Scotty Cameron golf putter product line with an oil can finish
• Oil Can Henry's, an oil change franchise founded in 1978
• Felix in the Factory (1982), a video game that features an oil level in which the Felix, a factory worker, must collect an oil can and return it to a generator in a set amount of time
• City Connection (シティコネクション, Shiti Konekushon, Cruisin', 1985), a video game where the player can collect oil cans that can be fired at police cars
• "Oilcan Sam", a short story by Scott Hopkins in the Elsewhere: An Anthology of Incredible Places (2003) speculative fiction series

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oilcans

• Oil-can delay method, an echo system
• Oil-canning, a metalforming drawing process

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Sutcliffe Midget Oilcan, miniature oil cans made by Sutcliffe Pressings for toy/miniature steam engines, stationarysteamengines.co.uk, retrieved 19 July 2010

An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils.

Etymology[link]

First attested in English 1176, the word oil comes from Old French "oile", from Latin "oleum",^[1] which in turn comes from the Greek "ἔλαιον" (elaion), "olive oil, oil"^[2] and that from "ἐλαία" (elaia), "olive tree".^[3] The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek e-ra-wo, written in Linear B syllabic script.^[4]

Types[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Organic oils[link]

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 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.^[5]

Mineral oils[link]

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.^[6] It is classified as a mineral oil because it does not have an organic origin on human timescales, but is instead obtained from rocks, underground traps, or sands. Mineral oil also refers to several specific distillates of crude oil.

Applications[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

A bottle of olive oil used in food

Cosmetics[link]

Oils are applied to hair to give it a lustrous look, to prevent tangles and roughness and to stabilize the hair to promote growth.^{[citation needed]} See Hair conditioner.

Religion[link]

Oils are commonly used in ritual anointments. As a particular example, holy anointing oil has been an important ritual liquid for Judaism and Christianity.

Painting[link]

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.^[7]

Heat transfer[link]

Oils are used as coolants in oil cooling, for instance in electric transformers. Oils are also used to enhance heating in other applications, such as cooking (especially in frying).

Lubrication[link]

Oils are commonly used as lubricants. Mineral oils are more commonly used as machine lubricants than biological oils are.

Fuel[link]

Some oils burn in liquid or aerosol form, generating heat which can be used directly or converted into other forms of energy such as electricity or mechanical work. To obtain many fuel oils, crude oil is pumped from the ground and is shipped via oil tanker 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 gallon barrel (U.S.) of crude oil produces approximately 10 gallons of diesel, 4 gallons of jet fuel, 19 gallons of gasoline, 7 gallons of other products, 3 gallons split between heavy fuel oil and liquified petroleum gases,^[8] and 2 gallons of heating oil. The total production of a barrel of crude into various products results in an increase to 45 gallons.^[8] Not all oils used as fuels are mineral oils, see biodiesel and vegetable oil fuel.

Chemical feedstock[link]

Crude oil can be refined into a wide variety of component hydrocarbons. 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.

See also[link]

• Cooking oil
• Emulsifier, a chemical which allows oil and water to mix
• Lubrication
• Wax, a class of compounds with oil-like properties that are solid at common temperatures

References[link]

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (October 2009)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oil

• Petroleum Online e-Learning resource from IHRDC

Paul Stamets holding Fomitopsis officinalis.

Paul E. Stamets (born July 17, 1955) is an American mycologist, author, and advocate of bioremediation and medicinal mushrooms.^[1]

Research and advocacy[link]

Stamets is on the editorial board of The International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms, and is an advisor to the Program for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona Medical School, Tucson, Arizona. He is active in researching the medicinal properties of mushrooms,^[2] and is involved in two NIH-funded clinical studies on cancer and HIV treatments using mushrooms as adjunct therapies. Having filed numerous patents on the antiviral, pesticidal, and remediative properties of mushroom mycelia, his work has been called pioneering and visionary.^[3] A strong advocate of preserving biodiversity, Stamets supports research into the role of mushrooms for ecological restoration.

The author of numerous books and papers on the subject of mushroom identification and cultivation, Stamets has discovered four new species of mushrooms. He is an advocate of the permaculture system of growing, and considers fungiculture a valuable but underutilized aspect of permaculture. He is also a leading researcher into the use of mushrooms in bioremediation, processes he terms mycoremediation and mycofiltration.

Stamets was the recipient of the "Bioneers Award" from The Collective Heritage Institute in 1998,^[4] as well as the "Founder of a New Northwest Award" from the Pacific Rim Association of Resource Conservation and Development Councils in 1999. He was also named one of Utne Reader's "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World" in their November–December 2008 issue. In February 2010, Paul received the President's Award from the Society for Ecological Restoration: Northwest Chapter, in recognition of his contributions to Ecological Restoration. His work was featured in the documentary film The 11th Hour.^[5] He has also been featured in the eco-documentary films Dirt (film)^[6] and 2012, Time for a Change (film).^[7]

In 2008, he delivered a TED talk: "Paul Stamets on 6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World",^[8] which has been well reviewed.^[9]

Personal life[link]

Stamets runs Fungi Perfecti, a family-owned company that sells mushroom cultivation kits and supplies. Stamets has two children, Azureus and LaDena Stamets, and is married to C. "Dusty" Wu Yao. Paul Stamets is an accomplished martial arts athlete, holding a black belt in Taekwondo (1979), and also in Hwa Rang Do (1994).

Books[link]

• Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World (2005, ISBN 1-58008-579-2)
• MycoMedicinals: An Informational Treatise on Mushrooms (1999, ISBN 0-9637971-9-0)
• Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World (1996, ISBN 0-89815-839-7)
• Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms (1996, ISBN 1-58008-175-4)
• Mushroom Cultivator, The (1983, ISBN 0-9610798-0-0)
• Psilocybe Mushrooms & Their Allies (1978), Homestead Book Company, ISBN 0-930180-03-8)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Stamets's Bio at Fungi Perfecti
• Stamets' TED talk, Stamets' Ted Talk from Mar 2008.
• Stamets' TEDMed talk 2011