It was known that contact with TEL would eventually cause hallucinations, difficulty in breathing and, in the worst cases, madness, spasms, palsies, asphyxiation and death. Public health officials raised concerns, and the engineer Midgley was one of the spokespeople sent out to trumpet the virtues of TEL. The only trouble was that, in , Midgley was forced to decline speaking engagements because his work with TEL had poisoned him.
GM moved forward. Within a month, several workers died from lead poisoning, but that fact was at first covered up. But like Du Pont, within three months, Ethyl's new plant produced five deaths and 35 injuries to its workers. The symptoms included tremors, hallucinations, severe palsies and other neurological symptoms. Some state and federal officials were threatening hearings and, worse, the possibility of banning leaded gasoline. In a public relations coup, Ethyl Corporation managed to overwhelm concerns from health officials that TEL added to gasoline would put tons of lead into the atmosphere in cities across the country.
Ethyl was approved for sale. In the meantime, throughout the 20s and 30s, farmers and ethanol advocates didn't give up the fight. In hundreds of gas stations primarily across the Midwest, ethanol was sold sometimes right alongside leaded gasoline blends. The first tank full was sold to Gov. Charles Bryan. Until the early 40s, Coryell sold several hundred thousand gallons, but still felt that the Ethyl Corporation was illegally undercutting his sales.
By that point, Ethyl was in at least 70 percent of the gasoline being sold, but the corporation refused to sell their product to any gas station that sold ethanol blends.
Earl Coryell went to the U. Today, sophisticated renewable fuel refineries operate much like a chemical refinery, able to produce multiple renewable fuels and products. Using state-of-the-art technologies, ethanol biorefineries convert grains, beverage and food waste, cellulosic biomass and other products called feedstocks into high-efficiency ethanol.
Over 90 percent of the grain ethanol produced today comes from the dry milling process, with the remaining coming from wet mills. The main difference between the two is in the initial treatment of the grain. Enzymes are added to the mash to convert starch to sugar. The mash is cooked, then cooled and transferred to fermenters.
Following the lead phase-out in the United States, the oil refining industry chose to construct additional refining capacity to produce octane from other petroleum products, rather than from renewable sources such as ethanol. RFG has an increased oxygenate content, which helps it burn more completely. As a result, RFG lowers the formation of ozone precursors and other air toxics during combustion.
Petroleum refiners were not required to use any particular oxygenate in RFG, but by the late s, a petroleum product, methyl tertiary butyl ether MTBE , was used in 87 percent of RFG due to its ease of transport and blending. In the Midwest, ethanol was a more common component of RFG. Despite its success at reducing ozone precursors, MTBE was phased out of the gasoline pool due to concerns over its solubility in water, which resulted in the contamination of water resources in numerous states.
Currently, 30 percent of gasoline sold in the United States is reformulated gasoline. Ethanol is providing the additional octane required by RFG. At the time, the U. At the same time, EPA and the U. The BTEX complex is a hydrocarbon mixture of benzene, toluene, xylene and ethyl-benzene.
Commonly referred to as gasoline aromatics, these compounds are refined from low-octane petroleum products into a high-octane gasoline additive. While some volume of BTEX is native to gasoline, it is also added to finished gasoline to boost its octane rating.
The total volume of BTEX aromatics in finished gasoline depends on the desired octane value and other desired fuel properties. When faced with the removal of lead as the primary octane provider in gasoline, refiners had two available alternatives, BTEX and ethanol. The refining industry invested in additional refining capacity to replace lead with BTEX, a high-octane petroleum refining product.
As a result of its substitution for lead, BTEX volume rose from 22 percent to roughly a third of the gasoline pool by In premium gasoline grades, the BTEX volume content was as high as 50 percent. In mandating cleaner fuels, through reformulated gasoline and other programs, EPA has reduced the volume of aromatics to between 25 to 28 percent of the conventional gasoline pool, though some health professionals question the safety of even these levels.
After the lead phase-out, there were early concerns regarding the BTEX complex. Today, health research indeed suggests that even very low-level exposure to the BTEX complex, from gasoline additives and other petroleum products, may contribute to negative developmental, reproductive and immunological responses, as well as cardio-pulmonary effects. Upon incomplete combustion of the BTEX complex contained in gasoline, ultra-fine particulates UFP and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons PAHs are formed, which carry their own adverse health impacts even at low levels.
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