Definition of napalm Napalm
/nejˈpɑm/ - [neypam] - na•palm
We found 6 definitions of napalm from 5 different sources.
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What does napalm mean?
WordNet
NounPlural: napalms |
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| napalm - gasoline jelled with aluminum soaps; highly incendiary liquid used in fire bombs and flamethrowers |
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Wiktionary 
OmegaWiki DictionaryOmegaWiki Dictionary Ω
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napalm
A highly flammable, viscous substance.
Wikipedia 
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Napalm is the name for a number of flammable liquids that have been used in warfare. Often it is jellied gasoline. Napalm is actually the thickener in such liquids. When it is mixed with gasoline, the thickener makes a sticky incendiary gel. It was developed by the U.S. in World War II by a team of Harvard chemists. The team leader was Louis Fieser. The name "Napalm" has comes from the ingredients that were first used to make it. Coprecipitated aluminum salts of naphthenic and palmitic acids. These were added to the flammable substance to cause it to gel.
One of the major problems of early incendiary fluids (such as those used in flamethrowers) was that they splashed and drained too easily. The U.S. found that flamethrowers that use a gasoline gel are able to shoot farther and are more useful. Gasoline gel was difficult to manufacture because it used natural rubber, which was in high demand and expensive. Napalm provided a far cheaper alternative. It solved the problems involved with rubber-based incendiaries.
Nowadays, napalm is mostly made of benzene and polystyrene, and is known as napalm-B.
Napalm was used in flamethrowers and bombs by the U.S. and Allied forces, to increase the usefulness of flammable liquids. Napalm is made to burn at a specific rate and stick to materials. This is done by mixing different of amounts of Napalm and other materials. Another useful (and dangerous) effect, primarily involving its use in bombs, was that napalm "rapidly deoxygenates the avail
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