Artifact
Tetraethyl lead
Lead compound added to gasoline from 1923 to stop engine knock; poisonous.
- Also known as
- TEL, lead tetraethyl, ethyl fluid
- developed by General Motors 1921–1923
- produced by E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company 1923–1925
- produced by Ethyl Corporation 1924–1940
Connections 6
developed by
- General Motors 1921–1923 Primary record 1
- Thomas Midgley Jr. 1921 found its anti-knock effect Scholarship & press 2
- Charles F. Kettering led the research team Primary record 1
produced by
- E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company 1923–1925 Primary record 1
- Ethyl Corporation 1924–1940 Primary record 3
involved in
- First sale of ethyl gasoline, 1923 the additive sold Primary record 4
Timeline 4 dates
- 1921–1923 General Motors developed Tetraethyl lead
- 1921 Thomas Midgley Jr. developed Tetraethyl lead
- 1923–1925 E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company produced Tetraethyl lead
- 1924–1940 Ethyl Corporation produced Tetraethyl lead
Proof 4 sources
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Proceedings of a Conference to Determine Whether or Not There Is a Public Health Question in the Manufacture, Distribution, or Use of Tetraethyl Lead Gasoline (Public Health Bulletin No. 158), U.S. Public Health Service, Treasury Department, 1925.
Primary record
Lead tetraethyl was developed by the General Motors and Du Pont corporations as an addition to motor fuels.
almost as a last resort we started to study the properties of lead.
Shipping in the drums from the du Pont Co- to us has never shown any effects whatever of hazard to the people handling it.
-
The Secret History of Lead (Jamie Lincoln Kitman, The Nation, March 2000), The Nation, 20 Mar 2000.
Scholarship & press
On December 9, 1921, a young engineer named Thomas Midgley Jr. , working in the laboratory of the General Motors Research Corporation in Dayton, Ohio, reported to his boss, Charles Kettering , that he’d discovered that tetraethyl lead
-
Ethyl Gasoline Corporation v. United States, 309 U.S. 436 (1940), Supreme Court of the United States (text via Cornell LII), 25 Mar 1940.
Primary record
The corporation manufactures and sells the patented fluid to oil refiners, solely for use in the production of the improved type of motor fuel.
-
The Use of Tetraethyl Lead Gasoline in Its Relation to Public Health (Public Health Bulletin No. 163), U.S. Public Health Service, Treasury Department, 1926.
Primary record
Ethyl gasoline was first placed on sale February 1, 1923, and its sale was voluntarily discontinued May 5, 1925, about 300,000,000 gallons of ethyl gasoline being distributed during this period.
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