Figure 1.--Here we see a 1940 magazine advertisement by Ethyl Gasoline Corporaiton advertising the benefits of TEL. The ad was captioned, "Trouble is, we need more power." The boys pictured with the plane wear standard casual clothing at the time. Notice the striped "T"-shirt.

The Ethyl Gasoline Corporaiton profuced a gasoline adittive--Tetraethyllead, The compound, better known as TEL was discovered by a German chemist (1854). At the time there was no coomercial use for the compound. After the the development of the internat combustion engine using gasoline, Thomas Midgley working under Charles Kettering at General Motors Research found that TEL was a useful antiknock agent (1921). General Motors then patented the use of TEL as an anti-knocking agent and created the marketing name Ethyl. The name was designed to down play the fact that it was a lead compound. Gasoline using TEL, however became known as leaded gas. The Standard Oil of New Jersey (ESSO--now Exxon) and General Motors founded the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation to produce and market TEL (1924). Geologist Clair Patterson by accident discovered the pollution being caused by the TEL in leaded gasoline. He was attempting to estimate the age of the earth. His method was to measure the lead content of very old rocks. Then using the time it took uranium to decay into lead, the age of the ricks could be derermined. His work was complicated by the lead that TEL was adding to the environment which complicated the rock samplers he was using. After growing realization of the hedalgth and environmental damage, the EPA began an effort to phase out leaded gasoline (1972). The Ethyl Corp, denied the growing body of scientific evidence and took EPA tgo court. EPA prevailed in court. The EPA phaseout program was initisted (1976) and completed (1986). The effort has proven a substantial success. A study reports that lead levels in Americans (based on blood samples) has fallen between 1976-91 nearly 80 percent (1994). [Pirkle et. al] TEL is still being used because in some developing countries. Here we see a 1940 magazine advertisement by Ethyl Gasoline Corporaiton advertising the benefits of TEL. The ad was captioned, "Trouble is, we need more power." The boys pictured with the plane wear standard casual clothing at the time. Notice the striped "T"-shirt.

Sources

Pirkle, J. L., D.J. Brody, E.W. Gunter, et al. "The Decline in Blood Lead Levels in the United States: The National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES)" Journal American Medical Associastion (JAMA) (1994) Vol. 272, No. 4, pp. 284–291.

Created: 8:36 PM 7/1/2010
Last updated: 8:36 PM 7/1/2010