Colza oil
Encyclopedia
Colza oil is a nondrying oil
Oil
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....

 obtained from the seeds of Brassica rapa
Brassica rapa
Brassica rapa L. , commonly known as turnip, turnip rape, field mustard or turnip mustard is a plant widely cultivated as a leaf vegetable , a root vegetable , and an oilseed .In the 18th century the turnip and...

, var. oleifera, a variety of the plant that produces turnips
Turnip
The turnip or white turnip is a root vegetable commonly grown in temperate climates worldwide for its white, bulbous taproot. Small, tender varieties are grown for human consumption, while larger varieties are grown as feed for livestock...

. Colza is extensively cultivated in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, the United States, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

. In France, especially, the extraction of the oil is an important industry. In commerce, colza is classed with rapeseed oil
Rapeseed
Rapeseed , also known as rape, oilseed rape, rapa, rappi, rapaseed is a bright yellow flowering member of the family Brassicaceae...

, to which it is very closely allied in both source and properties. It is a comparatively nonodoriferous oil of a yellow colour, having a specific gravity
Specific gravity
Specific gravity is the ratio of the density of a substance to the density of a reference substance. Apparent specific gravity is the ratio of the weight of a volume of the substance to the weight of an equal volume of the reference substance. The reference substance is nearly always water for...

 varying between 0.912 and 0.920. The cake left after extraction of the oil is a valuable feed ingredient for pigs
PIGS
PIGS is a four letter acronym that can stand for:* PIGS , Phosphatidylinositol glycan anchor biosynthesis, class S, a human gene* PIGS , the economies of Portugal, Italy , Greece and Spain...

.

Uses

Colza oil is extensively used as a lubricant
Lubricant
A lubricant is a substance introduced to reduce friction between moving surfaces. It may also have the function of transporting foreign particles and of distributing heat...

 for machinery.

Colza oil was used extensively in European domestic lighting before the advent of coal (city) gas or kerosene. It was the preferred oil for train pot lamps, and was used for lighting railway coaches in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 before gas lighting
Gas lighting
Gas lighting is production of artificial light from combustion of a gaseous fuel, including hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, or natural gas. Before electricity became sufficiently widespread and economical to allow for general public use, gas was the most...

, and later electric lighting, were adopted. Burned in a Carcel lamp, it was part of the definition of the French standard measure for illumination
Lighting
Lighting or illumination is the deliberate application of light to achieve some practical or aesthetic effect. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources such as lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylight...

, the carcel
Carcel
The Carcel is a former French unit for measuring the intensity of light. The unit was defined in 1860 as the intensity of a Carcel lamp with standard burner and chimney dimensions , which burnt colza oil...

, for most of the nineteenth century. In lighthouses, for example in early Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, colza oil was used before the introduction of mineral oil
Mineral oil
A mineral oil is any of various colorless, odorless, light mixtures of alkanes in the C15 to C40 range from a non-vegetable source, particularly a distillate of petroleum....

. The colza oil was used with the Argand burner because it was cheaper than whale oil
Whale oil
Whale oil is the oil obtained from the blubber of various species of whales, particularly the three species of right whale and the bowhead whale prior to the modern era, as well as several other species of baleen whale...

.

Colza oil was used in Gombault's Caustic Balsam, a popular horse and human liniment
Liniment
Liniment , from the Latin linere, to anoint, is a medicated topical preparation for application to the skin. Preparations of this type are also called balm...

 at the turn of the 20th century. (Note that the ingredients listed in this link are similar to, but not the same as, the list on the actual bottle).

Among the more unusual applications of colza oil is the calming of choppy seas, where the oil modifies the surface tension
Surface tension
Surface tension is a property of the surface of a liquid that allows it to resist an external force. It is revealed, for example, in floating of some objects on the surface of water, even though they are denser than water, and in the ability of some insects to run on the water surface...

 of the water and rapidly smooths the surface. Rescue and recovery operations have been made far less risky in this way.

More recently, colza has been cultivated in Europe as an ingredient for biodiesel
Biodiesel
Biodiesel refers to a vegetable oil- or animal fat-based diesel fuel consisting of long-chain alkyl esters. Biodiesel is typically made by chemically reacting lipids with an alcohol....

 fuels, and is the primary source of biodiesel
Biodiesel
Biodiesel refers to a vegetable oil- or animal fat-based diesel fuel consisting of long-chain alkyl esters. Biodiesel is typically made by chemically reacting lipids with an alcohol....

in Germany.

Crisis of 2008

In April 2008, the Spanish Food Safety Agency (AESAN) cautioned that a consignment of canola oil poisoned with aniline was imported from France for industrial purposes and then introduced into the market for sale for human consumption is illegal. The Health Ministry preemptively withdrew 125 tons of oil and sent a report to the European Commission, which in turn alerted the governments of France, Italy, UK and Holland, but later reports revealed that the toxicological risk was minimal.
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