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According to the novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk:

The three ways to make napalm: One, you can mix equal parts of gasoline and frozen orange juice concentrate. Two, you can mix equal parts of gasoline and diet cola. Three, you can dissolve crumbled cat litter in gasoline until the mixture is thick.

The napalm is originally called napalm because is mixture of naphthenic acid and palmitic acid. This makes me very skeptic about it being created by gasoline and juice. Also I see no reason for it to be frozen.

The only thing that sounds realistic to achieve the sticky effect is the use of cat litter - but you could as well just use dry dirt, couldn't you? And dirt doesn't really burn so you're weakening the burning effect.

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    $\begingroup$ Modern napalm (Napalm B) is polystyrene-based, it has a completely different chemical composition, but it is still called napalm (as described in the Wikipedia article you linked). The typical recipe for homemade napalm is styrofoam and gasoline, I would suspect that the recipies from the movie are all fake. $\endgroup$
    – Mad Scientist
    Aug 25, 2014 at 20:54
  • $\begingroup$ The nitroglycerine recipe in the book is exact to the letter - and the movie gives you some ideas as well, though they don't explain how to nitrate the glycerine made from fat. $\endgroup$
    – Tomáš Zato
    Aug 25, 2014 at 21:25
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    $\begingroup$ Orange juice or coke doesn't even mix well with gasoline. Considering that is coming from a fiction book, it may have been chosen only for the shock value. Average reader do not understand what palmitic acid is. $\endgroup$
    – Greg
    Aug 26, 2014 at 0:43
  • $\begingroup$ I modified the order of the text a bit so that someone reading the questions page does not think the recipe is something of your creation. I have removed the home-experiment tag because this isn't really something that the average person should be making at home. Please take precautions. $\endgroup$
    – jonsca
    Aug 26, 2014 at 2:31
  • $\begingroup$ And you added safety tag, like I was asking something about safety. Also, the fact that you're not supposed to make an experiment at home doesn't mean you will not. In the Fight Club, they also used gloves and glasses when working with NaOH. $\endgroup$
    – Tomáš Zato
    Aug 27, 2014 at 14:15

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Here's an excerpt from an interview with the author of Fight Club, Chuck Palhniuk.

How to make Napalm with Frozen Orange Juice and Gasoline?

Well, Ed Norton changed one ingredient in every one to make them useless. So, that really pissed me off because I really research those really well. Actually its styrofoam and gasoline - it make the most incredible explosive.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/interviews/chuck_palahniuk.html

So no, Fight Club does not accurately convey any of the recipes. All were clearly modified. And most likely for safety reasons - i.e. you wouldn't want someone to walk out the theatre with a "bright" idea. On the other hand I would still expect a mixture of gasoline and orange juice concentrate to be rather flammable ...

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    $\begingroup$ and personal research into styrofoam and gasoline has indicated that it is not explosive, but it is very flammable. $\endgroup$
    – user137
    Aug 26, 2014 at 6:42
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    $\begingroup$ gasoline+styrofoam: flamabe AND STICKY! The whole point of napalm is to be sticky, so under normal fight conditions it makes the most possible damage both on buildings and on personal. $\endgroup$
    – Greg
    Aug 27, 2014 at 6:02
  • $\begingroup$ Did the author publish the book with the correct recipes somehow? $\endgroup$
    – Tomáš Zato
    Aug 27, 2014 at 14:18
  • $\begingroup$ I don't understand this interview, why would Palhniuk claim that Ed Norton altered the recipes when he had nothing to do with writing the book? See this Google book search (books.google.com/…) for reference, as this edition has the altered recipes... echoing @TomášZato, is there a version of the book with unaltered recipes? $\endgroup$
    – silverjam
    May 6, 2016 at 3:51
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    $\begingroup$ @silverjam - he meant Ed Norton modified the recipe in the movie. $\endgroup$
    – Dissenter
    May 6, 2016 at 4:11

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