A chemical compound with a hydrocarbon chain of twenty carbons, or any organic molecule containing two cetyl groups (chains).
From 'di-' (two) + 'cetyl' (from Latin 'cetaceus' meaning 'of whales,' as cetyl was originally derived from whale oil). The term emerged in 19th-century organic chemistry.
Dicetyl compounds were first isolated from whale oil and spermaceti (the waxy substance in sperm whale heads), leading to a boom in whale hunting in the 1800s before petroleum chemistry made them synthetically.
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