LEADED GASOLINE

INTRODUCTION
Tetraethyl lead was used in early model cars to help
octane ratings, and help with wear and tear on valve
concerns over air pollution and health risks, this type
starting in the late 1970s and banned altogether in all
1995.

reduce engine knocking, boost

seats within the motor. Due to
of gas was slowly phased out
on-road vehicles in the U.S. in

For a more detailed explanation of why lead used to be added to gasoline, its
necessary to understand a little bit more about gasoline and what properties make it a
good combustion material in car engines. Gasoline itself is a product of crude oil that is
made of carbon atoms joined together into carbon chains. The different length of the
chains creates different fuels. For example, methane has one carbon atom, propane
has three, and octane has eight carbon atoms chained together. These chains have
characteristics that behave differently under various circumstances; characteristics like
boiling point and ignition temperature, for instance, can vary greatly between them. As
fuel is compressed in a motors cylinder, it heats up. Should the fuel reach its ignition
temperature during compression, it will auto-ignite at the wrong time. This causes loss
of power and damage to the engine. Fuels such as heptane (which has 7 carbon atoms
chained together) can ignite under very little compression. Octane, however, tends to
handle compression extremely well.
Tetraethyllead (commonly styled tetraethyl lead), abbreviated TEL, is an organolead
compound with the formula (CH3CH2) Pb.
TEL was mixed with gasoline (petrol) beginning in the 1920s as a patented octane
rating booster that allowed engine compression to be raised substantially, which in turn
increased vehicle performance or fuel economy. TEL in automotive fuel was phased out
starting in the U.S. in the mid-1970s because of its cumulative neurotoxicity and its
damaging effect on catalytic converters. When present in fuel, TEL is also the main
cause of spark plug fouling. TEL is still used as an additive in some grades of aviation
gasoline, and in some developing countries.
Innospec has claimed to be the last firm still making TEL, but as of 2013 TEL was
apparently being produced illegally by several companies in China.
TEL was extensively used as a gasoline additive beginning in the 1920s wherein it
served as an effective antiknock agent and prevented exhaust valve and valve
seat wear.

Valve wear preventative

Tetraethyl lead works as a buffer against microwelds forming between the hot exhaust
valves and their seats. Once these valves reopen, the microwelds pull apart and leave
the valves with a rough surface that would abrade the seats, leading to valve recession.
When lead began to be phased out of motor fuel, the automotive industry began
specifying hardened valve seats and upgraded exhaust valve materials to prevent valve
recession without lead.

Antiknock agent
A gasoline-fueled reciprocating engine requires fuel of sufficient octane rating to prevent
uncontrolled combustion known as engine knocking (knock or ping). Antiknock agents
allow the use of higher compression ratios for greater efficiency and peak power.
Adding varying amounts of additives like low percentage TEL or high percentage
ethanol to gasoline, allowed easy, inexpensive control of octane ratings. TEL offered the
business advantage of being commercially profitable because it could be patented.
Aviation spirits with TEL used in WWII reached 150 octane to enable supercharged
engines such as the Rolls-Royce Merlin and Griffon to reach high horse power ratings
at altitude. In military aviation, TEL manipulation allowed a range of different fuels to be
tailored for particular flight conditions.
In 1935 the licence to produce TEL was given to I.G.Farben enabling the newly formed
German Luftwaffe to use high-octane gasoline. A company, Ethyl GmbH, was formed
that produced TEL at two sites in Germany with a government contract from 10 June
1936

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
Toxicity
Lead pollution from engine exhaust is dispersed into the air and into the vicinity of roads
and easily inhaled. Contact with concentrated TEL leads to acute lead poisoning.
Lead is a toxic metal that accumulates in the body and is associated with subtle and
insidious neurotoxic effects especially at low exposure levels, such as low IQ and
antisocial behavior. It has particularly harmful effects on children. These concerns
eventually led to the ban on TEL in automobile gasoline in many countries. Some
neurologists have speculated that the lead phaseout may have caused average IQ

levels to rise by several points in the US (by reducing cumulative brain damage
throughout the population, especially in the young). For the entire US population, during
and after the TEL phaseout, the mean blood lead level dropped from 16 g/dL in 1976
to only 3 g/dL in 1991.The US Centers for Disease Control considered blood lead
levels "elevated" when they were above 10 g/dL.
Lead exposure affects the intelligence quotient (IQ) such that a blood lead level of 30
g/dL is associated with a 6.9-point reduction of IQ, with most reduction (3.9 points)
occurring below 10 g/dL.
Reduction in the average blood lead level is believed to have been a major cause for
falling violent crime rates in the United States and South Africa. Researchers including
Amherst College economist Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, Department of Housing and Urban
Development consultant Rick Nevin, and Howard Mielke of Tulane University, say that
declining exposure to lead is responsible for up to a 56% decline in crime from 1992 to
2002. Including other factors that are believed to have increased crime rates over that
period Reyes found that this led to an actual decline of 34% over that period.
A statistically significant correlation has been found between the usage rate of leaded
gasoline and violent crime: taking into account a 22-year time lag, the violent crime
curve virtually tracks the lead exposure curve. After the ban on TEL, blood lead levels in
US children dramatically decreased.
Although leaded gasoline is largely gone in North America, it has left high
concentrations of lead in the soil adjacent to roads that were constructed prior to its
phaseout. Children are particularly at risk if they consume this.

Health Impacts
Before the global phase out, exhaust fumes from vehicles using leaded gasoline
typically accounted for 90 percent of airborne lead pollution. Lead and lead compounds
can adversely affect human health through either direct inhalation or ingestion of leadcontaminated soil, dust, or paint. Elevated lead levels can adversely affect mental
development and performance, kidney function, and blood chemistry. This is particularly
a risk for young children, due to the increased sensitivity of young tissues and organs to
lead as well as to their greater chance of ingesting lead with soil and dust.
In children, it has been concluded that a 10 microgram per deciliter increase of lead in
blood causes approximately a 2.5-point decrease in the IQ. Studies have pointed out
that children who grew up in urban settings with higher traffic density tend to have

higher blood level levels than their rural counterparts. A variety of statistical
relationships between ambient lead concentrations and BLL and childrens IQ suggest
that a 1 mg/m3 increase in ambient airborne emissions can be connected to an
approximately 1 IQ-point decrease in exposed children. The affected children are likely
to have lower learning and social contact abilities.
Lead-related pollution also causes cardiovascular problems in adults even with low
levels of exposure, as well as adverse reproductive effects for women. Additionally, in
adults, high blood lead levels have been linked to elevated blood pressure causing
hypertension, heart attacks and premature death.
One estimate of the relationship between ambient airborne lead levels and the
cardiovascular impacts of lead in adults - including hypertension, heart attacks and
premature deaths - concludes that a 1g/m3 increase in ambient lead concentrations
was estimated to cause 44,800 to 97,000 cases of hypertension per 1 million males
between the ages of 20 and 70, 180-500 nonfatal heart attacks and 200-650 premature
deaths per 1 million males between the ages of 40 and 59.
TEL can cause acute or chronic lead poisoning if inhaled or absorbed through the skin.
Indeed, the industrial chemist widely given credit for discovering the antiknock
properties of the compound, Thomas Midgley, Jr., was forced to leave his job for several
months in 1923 in order to recuperate from lead poisoning. From 1923 to 1925 several
workers suffered agonizing deaths from acute lead poisoning at the first plants built by
the General Motors Corporation, the DuPont Company, and the Standard Oil Company
(New Jersey) for producing TEL on an industrial scale. The dangers of lead poisoning
were well known at the time, publicized by such occupational-health advocates as Alice
Hamilton of Harvard Medical School. Procedures were installed at TEL plants for safely
processing the compound, and officials from the automobile and oil industries (including
Midgley himself) succeeded in convincing government health authorities and regulators
that the minute quantities of lead emitted from engine exhaust had not been proved to
constitute a danger to public health. As a result, use of TEL was approved, and ethyl
gasoline became the standard antiknock formulation for use in automobile engines.
For nearly six decades, gasoline companies ignored the known dangers associated with
lead to get rich. Tetraethyl lead boosted the octane levels in auto fuel, but there was
speculation surrounding the safety of that decision from Day One.In the Nov. 10, 1924,
issue of TIME, a report showed that 35 men at the Standard Oil Company of New
Jersey had come down with an "occupational disease." Symptoms ranged from
insomnia to low blood pressure, all at the hands of lead poisoning.

RECOMMENDATION
In 1974, after environmental hazards began to become overwhelmingly apparent, the
EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) announced a scheduled phase out of lead
content in gasoline. One way manufacturers met these and other emission standards
was to use catalytic converters. Catalytic converters use a chemical reaction to change
pollutants, like carbon monoxide and other harmful hydrocarbons, to carbon dioxide,
nitrogen and water. Tetraethyl lead would tend to clog up these converters making them
inoperable. Thus, unleaded gasoline became the fuel of choice for any car with a
catalytic converter.
The requirements by the EPA, emission control mechanisms on cars, and the advent of
other octane boosting alternatives spelled the end for widespread leaded gasoline use.
Manufacturers soon found that cars could no longer handle such a fuel; public tolerance
of the environmental and health hazards would not allow it; and it became cost
prohibitive to continue producing it. On January 1, 1996, the Clean Air Act completely
banned the use of leaded fuel for any on road vehicle. Should you be found to possess
leaded gasoline in your car you can be subject to a $10,000 fine.

Promoting unleaded gasoline:

o ULG : better for your car
o fouling up engine
o corrosion exhaust
o ULG: better for your wallet
o reduced maintenance costs
o slight efficiency improvement
o ULG: better for health and environment
o Better health
o Reduced ambient lead levels

Leaded
gasoline
remains
legal
as
of
late
2014
in
parts
of Algeria, Iraq, Yemen, Myanmar, North Korea, and Afghanistan. It was available at the
pump in most of these countries as of 2011, but very little was used in North Korea and
it was not clear whether it was sold in Afghanistan. Specialty chemical
company Innospec says that it is the world's only manufacturer of TEL and sells it for
automotive use nowhere except to Algeria as of late 2014.