Now that you know why lead was added to gasoline check out this video and find out Why Pencil “Lead” is Called “Lead”: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aqRdrXUaESg.html
Honestly, you guys should do a whole video on Thomas Midgley jr. He had a history of inventing things that looked great on the surface (i.e. leaded gasoline) but turned out to be extremely harmful. The cause of his death pretty much sums it up.
OMG, I can totally relate! For me, it wasn't gasoline, but rather the smell of 2-stroke engine exhaust. I LOVED that smell! Small marine engines and off-road motorcycles had the most delicious aromas, but I would settle for a leaf blower, lawn mower, or chainsaw if that was all that was available. Just thinking of the smell of 2-stroke engines puttering away brings back fond memories.
E3ECO, I forgot to mention acetylene gas. If you have never given it a whiff, you don't know what you are missing! It has a very sweet aroma. Also, we all have brain damage by now, so don't let that stop you!
I'm a bit surprised the way you explained the eventual banning of leaded gasoline... it's a very interesting story. The majority of the scientific community were convinced that leaded gasoline would not introduce a significant amount of lead into the air through the exhaust and that direct exposure would be necessary to cause problems. A toxicologist realized that the research done to reach this conclusion was woefully inadequate and did his own experiments. He found that cars put out a dangerous amount of lead in their exhaust and its density did not prevent it from spreading in the air where people would breathe it in (another argument used to assure people of its safety). The oil industry attacked him, saying that a toxicologist was the wrong person to be doing such experiments and that chemists disagreed with him. And they did, they had no problem finding chemists who were angry that this upstart toxicology professor was questioning their work and suggesting that they had supported something dangerous to the public. The oil industry approached the university he worked at to try to get them to fire the professor. Of course, being a tenured professor, he could not be fired. Instead, THEY GOT RID OF HIS ENTIRE DEPARTMENT. Leaded gasoline would still be killing people and destroying peoples brains if, after his reputation was destroyed, his career ruined, and his job lost, he wrote a letter to the President of the United States which eventually lead to the Clean Air Act and the move to remove lead from gasoline. He was eventually vindicated, but he got rough treatment from everyone thanks to the Ethyl Corporation. His name is Dr. Clair Patterson. We owe him a great debt, and his story should be one that all scientists are reminded of any time they are tempted to cut corners or slack off on their rigorous adherence to science for practical considerations. The Ethyl Corporation even offered Patterson lucrative contracts in hopes of getting him to produce more favorable research, but he refused them. There is good reason to suspect that the banning of leaded gasoline was one of the major causes that led to the steep drop in violent crime seen during the 1990s. We still, to this day, have a higher level of atmospheric lead in our air than before the introduction of leaded gasoline. Lead is a horrendously neurotoxic chemical and the world would have been much better off had Midgley never had the terrible idea to add it to gasoline. Oh, and the guy who created leaded gas and ignored those warnings about the toxicity of lead? He also invented chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the things that has to be banned because they tore a big hole in the ozone layer.
@@hendricksonrunner5015 you have no idea what you're talking about. Just say you don't care about the environment and are selfish lmao. Its painfully obviously
@@jayman2261 Haven't you tried Amsoil's Upper Cylinder Lubricant for your 1950s Cadillacs? At least, that's what I'd be trying in any leaded fuel era engine. I've had great results with Amsoil's products.
Another bonus fact: Thomas Midgley jr went on to help develop CFCs, used as a refrigerant and later in aerosol cans. They became so wide spread that they were one of the major causes of the depletion of the ozone layer.
friend of mine runs leaded gas in his vintage Corvette (despite it being a road-going car). when you stop at a long light, the exhaust vapor hangs around the car and you can smell the lead, it smells very sweet.
Cars Simplified I'm not sure what brand it is, but it's some kind of leaded high-octane racing fuel. leaded racing fuels are still offered by Sunoco and a few other big brands. it's hyper-expensive.
Interesting! All I have seen at stations with special fuel is ethanol-free, E85, and kerosene. I'll keep an eye out! I'd like to try running some of that in my GTO.
Cars Simplified Cheapest Sunoco leaded is Sunoco 110 Standard Leaded, about $10/gal, and prices only go up depending on octane, lead, additives, and base fuel (gas, alcohol, etc.). VP also makes leaded fuel. Not sure of other brands, never really looked into it. Technically not road legal (fuel is usually dyed, and if a mechanic noticed, you could get in trouble), will clog cats, and you probably won't see much performance bump unless you're running high compression.
+zealotguy The video never claimed the lead particles "disappeared". on the contrary, the video was quite explicit about lead particles in the exhaust clogging catalytic converters. Another thing not mentioned in the video is how the lead particles settle on or near the road (being heavy molecules) or how the additives that replaced the lead are lighter molecules which means there are now airborne carcinogens causing far worse problems than lead ever did.
Hey, maybe that's part of the conspiracy! Lead has been shown to decrease IQ, and if they pump enough of it into the air that we commoners breathe then we won't be smart enough to even know what lead is, let alone have the ability to argue that it's hurting us. No?
No... the lead molecules don't stay airborne long enough to travel far from their source so any effect would be localised. On the other hand the toluene that replaced lead is airborne and giving far more people cancer than leaded fuel ever effected.
okay so the lead isn't airborne. good thing it can just settle all over the road ways. oh no its raining and all the lead is being washed into the storm drains! I hope it doesn't get into the ground water!
While I always knew the base reason why lead was added (quiet the knocking) I had no idea the history nor the chemistry involved. Kudos for a great presentation & please keep up the good work. I always learn something from these videos, and learning is key to life (even at my age).
Thank you for this information. My sports car from the early 1970s was specified lead gasoline only. In the later years when it became scarce, I had no choice but to resort to using the unleaded. The difference in my car's speed and gasoline burn was significant. It took more unleaded gasoline and the car was less quickly able to respond to acceleration; it simply did not run as efficiently and as smoothly. Once lead was available outside of the gasoline station context, the car eventually returned to its high performance. The car still runs just fine to this day as does the other we have. We just do not drive them as regular cars anymore bc they are considered antiques. We mostly drive them to local car shows for others' visual enjoyment and edification.
A lot of cars were specified "Lead Only", but in reality, there were a lot of alternatives to tetraethyllead that were passed over because it would have been hard for oil and motor companies to patent the process to make them, as they were too common or ubiquitous. Among these alternatives were Ethanol and Iodine additives.
Nobody owns the facts. Make it unique by putting your own personal spin on it and cover it. :-) I doubt we've ever covered something here that has never been covered somewhere before (though we have a video coming up in a few weeks that is going to be the exception to that rule, or at least we're going to be the first to be able to give a definitive answer, being the only ones who have performed the necessary experiment in a scientifically rigorous fashion :-)). But in general, everything's been covered somewhere before. The important thing is to make the topic your own, so to speak. For us, that's always trying for much higher accuracy, going into far more detail than most others, and/or doing a much deeper dive into the topic- both research-wise and what we explicitly cover, including potentially interesting related things- than other people do. Of course, some people hate that we do that, and prefer the two paragraph version, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that, but this is our niche. Plenty of other channels to cover topics differently for people who like different styles to enjoy instead. :-) And beyond all of that, your fans are not necessarily ours, so many, if not all, may have never even heard of us or our video on the topic. Don't deprive them of the knowledge on our account. :-) But bottom line, you're a unique individual. Apply your uniqueness to the topic and don't be afraid to cover it just because someone else did. :-)
I like everything about that comment. I will still be producing the video, but at a later date. I like that you have some new science to bring to the Internet! I've done some first-on-the-Internet content myself, and it is my most viewed video to date, so put your best efforts into yours! It will likely become a highlight of your channel.
So, as a chemist, I was once doing some research about alkylcobalt compounds. And I stumbled by accident on a paper from the 1920s where they suggested adding dimethylcadmium to gasoline to prevent engine knocking. (they even made a couple patents on it!) So, in a way, we're lucky they instead went for lead!
Fuels and additives are dangerous, I refueled in Air Force, JP5, JP8, JP8+100, Mogas, and Diesel. My exposure has caused nerve damage 😣. Becareful around all Fuels
Bret Steckervetz as many precautions as the Air Force has in place it still has not stopped me from bathing in the damn stuff from time to time while working on engines occupational hazard I suppose
Bret Steckervetz Yeah, that stuff was extremely flammable. Saw a B52 completely burned to the ground cause of a fuel spill almost 30 years ago. That is when they changed over to JP5 in the C5 and B52 aircraft.
Something I've found out with personal use of love fuels is that it runs much cooler than unleaded. Running 2 identical race fuels in my dirtbike, one with lead and the other without. My dad and I figured out when I get off the track from a race while using the leaded fuel the bike is so cool that we can touch the silencer at the end of the exhaust system. But the unleaded fuel runs way hotter. To the point where I can feel the heat radiating off the engine between my legs. Just a fun little thing I found out, thought I'd share
I like to pick up 100LL Avgas for my Car when I store it or need to run out some of the crud So-Cal gas that goes stale in a month. Even though I have Unleaded Heads(Valves) it seems to perk up when she feeds on some lead. A dose of Marvels Mystery Oil with it works wonders also.
This is super cool. I knew about the knocking issue but I didn't realize how else the chemical reaction would be affected. Thanks a bunch for your work as usual!
My grandparents used to own a 1980 Pontiac Bonneville coupé that had been illegally converted to run on either leaded or unleaded gasoline by a previous owner. Basically the cat and fuel nozzle restrictor was removed.
Specially now, when Trumps administration been reversing a lot of environment protection and pollution laws (including the clean air act) www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html
I think the bonus fact regarding of the level of lead being reduced by 75% is a bit misleading as to the cause. The battle against lead poisoning was a multi-prong attack, not just removing it from gasoline. Growing up during this era, the effort to reduce lead or get rid of it entirely focused on a number of sources such as lead piping, solder, various paints, etc.. All these efforts helped to create the more lead free environment we have today (although the battle still continues).
you talked about why lead was added to gasoline and only had a short statement that it was bad for the 'environment'. I would have liked to hear more about the known problems of lead poisioning from cars. Thanks.
It wasn't outlawed at the various gas stations I worked at as a teenager in 1968- 1974. We had two grades, regular and ethyl. Heck still sold kerosene back then, and my best buddy worked at his Dad's lumber yard where you could buy a load of coal, and you could buy paragoric over the counter at the Rexall drug store.🤣
You need to do a follow-up video on the additives that have replaced lead. It would also be interesting to see the effects of ethanol on gasoline and engine performance. For example, my 1998 Honda owner's manual specifically states that I should not use fuel containing ethanol because it will damage my engine. However, thanks to Congress and their ethanol mandate, I can no longer find fuel that does not contain ethanol. What about that little conflict?
Interestingly enough the lead is still used for older heavy trucks to keep the engines from failing under load with potentially dangerous results because at high RPM the older engines WILL weld the valves and can cause lunging which when you have a large load of logs is extremely dangerous as the truck can destabilize due to the rocking motion with no way to recover potentially killing the driver, as a result the local gas stations still sell a lead additive in a bottle which most loggers here use.
Using leaded gasoline was perhaps the greatest evil ever inflicted on the human race and we did it gladly mostly for money. We'll never know the full extent of the damage caused because of how insidiously it affects us.
Replace "we" with "the top 1%". The common person, the majority, has no say in things like this. We take what we're given. The government is supposed to be our voice and our power but we let it get sold to the top 1% as well.
I've seen "lead substitute" additives for engines that use leaded gasoline. Anyone know what is in these additives? You can convert an older engine to run on unleaded, it involves removing the heads and taking them to a machinist and having hardened valve seats installed. In later model vehicles, this may not be necessary.
I wanted to point out to the US audience members, that the octane method used in this video is not what we use. In North America, it's octane equivalency, because some stations like Sunoco sell 104 Octane gasoline. The octane rating in the US is calculated differently than many other countries so it appears to be lower. In the US, it is calculated as (RON+MON)/2 where RON is the Research Octane Number and MON is the Motor Octane Number. Many other countries just use the RON rating. Since the RON rating and MON rating are close but not the same, the US just opted to average them. That gives you the AKI number (Anti Knock Index) which we for simplicity's sake call it the "Octane Rating"
Another bonus fact: Back in the 70's when they started to produce "un-leaded" gas, they did so by simply not adding the tetraeythol lead to the fuel, then charged the public a premium price for un-leaded gas. So yes, even though they saved money (in both time and product) by cutting out part of the process, they charged you more.
Octane ratings do not specify the "amount" or "percentage" of octane in fuel. They are a benchmark that specified that the fuel, which has all sorts of hydrocarbons in it and is definitely NOT an 87/13 octane/heptane mix, behaves like an 87% octane mixture.
If I recall correctly the octane-rating is not based on octane, but on, 2-3-4,trimethyl-pentane. It was called octane rating because of the 8-Atoms. :)
So, in 1966 according to this video, the use of leaded gas was banned for use in any on road vehicle. Since I was born in the early 70s, and didn't start driving a car until the mid 80s, why do I remember when the "regular vs unleaded" option was available at gas stations until about the time I graduated high school, and my 1976 model car was labeled "leased gas only"?
We're always looking to improve the videos as much as possible given time and available funds. The last few months have given us a bit more in the funds department to work with. Still a long ways to go to get the videos to our vision of them, but slowly but surely. :-)
+wholeNwon are you refering to me or the "today I found out" youtube channel? If you are referring to me, I would appreciate a correction, I'm always happy to improve my english skills
Tetraethyl lead was used as an octane booster, even though it was bad for engines, because the research was done in the early 1920s, because Midgley's preferred sdditives, ethanol and methanol, would not be allowed under the 18th Amendment to the US constitution. And unleaded petrol is not harmful to valves and seats in well-engineered engines. My Renaults, Citroen and Audi, and my 7-series BMW motorcycles, all dating from the time of leaded petrol, had no valve problems on unleaded.
It is a myth. The direction the water moves in the toilet is entirely based on the way the toilet is built, not where in the world it's used. If it's built to swirl clockwise it will, if it's built to swirl counterclockwise it will.
It IS a myth, like gimmethegepgun said. The idea behind it is what is called the "Coriolis force". That's the reason why, among other things, rotating thunderstorms (like hurricanes/typhoons) spin in opposite directions in the north and south hemispheres of Earth. The water in toilets is much too small to be affected by the Coriolis force, but popular knowledge continues to spread the idea that it is. In reality, the construction of the toilet dictates which way the water will spin, regardless of which hemisphere the toilet is in.
It caused by Coriolis Force. However, the Coriolis Force isn't the only force affecting your toilet flush so you wont get consistent clockwise/counterclockwise swirl in any toilet/sink around the world. Unless, you isolate the system from those other forces. Check out Veritasium & Smarter Every Day video on this topic. They did such experiment.
Stuff like this is why the EPA is so important. :( Kinda crazy though that the thing that finally did kill its use wasn't all the worker deaths, but the advent of new car parts that were incompatible with the stuff.
Did you know that the laboratory standard Heptane used in engine research is organically sourced? The Jeffery Pine, close cousin to the Ponderosa Pine, has a sap that is about 40% Heptane by weight. Distilling the sap makes high purity Heptane, free of any other hydrocarbons. Folks making turpentine found out about the Jackson Pine when their sap-stills started exploding.
Didn't mention that they also experimented with adding methyl or ethyl (can't remember which) alcohol and it worked nearly if not just as well. Why we as humans didn't go with hemp oil based diesel fuels and engines and stick to it is beyond me. Quickly renewable and generally safe to store transport and handle.
When catalytic converters were installed on US cars in model year 1975, unleaded gas was required else the converters would be destroyed. Unleaded fuel nozzles were made into a small diameter while leaded gas fuel nozzles remained a standard size so leaded gas cannot be poured by accident into the gas tank of a modern car. By the mid to late 1990's most cars still on the road had the converters while cars which required leaded gas were mostly off the road so the leaded fuel pump now dispensed unleaded mid-grade fuel.
I don't know why but when I was younger I always read unleaded as 'unleeded'. Or the lead that's used like 'The teacher lead the class'. So now I have to correct myself everytime I read it. It's surprisingly frustrating.
Aircraft still use lead in gasoline because despite great efforts to reformulate, nothing else works as well. Avgas can last twenty years and still work properly. Autogas goes bad in a few months.
I remember something about gasoline during the 1970' s and 1980's-there was a detergent additive added to the gasoline to prevent knocking but it just fouled spark plugs. Do you know what it was? I think it was acronym called AZT or ACT? I'm not really sure. Please reply?
Fun fact about Catalytic Converters. The catalytic reaction only works for about 50,000 miles after which the agents inside the unit become spent and it starts spewing toxic chemicals. Replace your catalytic converter at the specified intervals or you'll be doing more harm than good.
That date for outlawing leaded gasoline as an automobile fuel in the US in the '60's cannot be right. I owned a '70s era Imperial which ran on leaded and I could still buy leaded to put in it at the gas station in the early to mid '80s.
This may be a stupid question but I am going to ask anyway. If you have a classic car and leaded gas is not available will it run like a normal modern car on unleaded? Or does it need upgraded or modified?
I remember leaded gas sold at the pumps in the 1970's, so the assertion that it was banned for car use in the 60's is wrong. Regular leaded or unleaded gas was sold at the pumps.
Bonus fact - Thomas Midgley Jr is the man considered to have single handedly caused the most damage to the environment. After working on lead additives in petrol, he worked with DuPont on a new non-flammable refrigerant for the growing air conditioning market. Midgely, and his team (who were also working for Kettering again) developed dichlorodifluoromethane and trichlorofluoromethane, aka R12 and R11, aka CFC's. Extra fact - after a life spent inventing things that would go on to create health and environmental problems, Midgley was incapacitated, thanks to polio, and was bed ridden. To help him work, he invented a series of pulleys and ropes to help raise and lower his bed. Sadly for Midgley, one night while sleeping, he rolled out of bed, got tangled in his ropes, and was strangled by his own invention.
I remember my father buying leaded gas at one of the few remaining stations to sell it back in the early 90's. Was over a dollar a gallon cheaper than buying normal avgas even back then.
Figures, the one time something very near to where I grew up and still live, and its because workers died of lead poisoning. DuPont Chamber's Works is just a few miles up the road from me.
You were in my home suggestions next to a Northernlion video, and I was like "wtf, is that really NL doing a divulgative science video? It sure looks like him"
The reason leaded fuel is permitted for marine, aircraft , and off-road use is that lead replacements like ethanol attack the fuel tanks of these vehicles which are often made of fiberglass. As the fuel dissolved the fiberglass the residue would clog the fuel system and result in engine failure... not good on an airplane or boat at sea. Motorcycle manufacturers used fiberglass fuel tanks as well and overtime the new gasoline would ruin the tanks.
great video as always! I would like to see where are the Rivalry between Chevy and Ford owner's came from and also how about why and when GMC split off from Chevy
People often forget the quickest-acting forms of lead poisoning: .22 .38 .303 .30-40 .30-06 .40 .45 7mm 9mm And others that rely on lands and grooves. This is related to the BIG BANG theory. Any big bang.
i'm not sure that the statement about leaded fuel being unavailable for on road use after 60something is totally correct. my first car was a 72 olds that i got in 1986. it took leaded gas and i had no problem finding it at any gas station. but by the end of the 80s, we had to buy an additive to put in with the unleaded until the car died.
Actually... use of leaded gasoline wasn't completely phased out until the early to mid 80's. I got my first car in 81 admittedly a used model and it still required leaded gas. When sales of leaded gas was nearly complete in the Midwest almost every station in my area still sold lead additives in store for those who still owned older model cars.
What? But I still see things at gas stations giving you the option of leaded or unleaded? Is it just a ruse to get you to pay more for the same product?
Adding tetra-ethyl lead increases the octane rating, but the octane rating is the percentage of octane in the gas? You've contradicted yourself there. From what i've heard the octane rating is how good the gas behaves under compression compared to a branched out octane molecule ( i forget which one ). Thats why you can have an octane rating above 100.
Do one about why lead is still added to electrical solder in spite of it being a health hazard. The reasons are pretty interesting as it's not quite as simple as just removing the lead and everything is better.
Because it's more robust and can handle better heat.the reason why so many electric devices fail nowadays, is because the have unleaded soldering lead. The lead gets brittle and won't keep a connection between the ic a d the board. I still use and but leaded soldering lead.
As someone who lives in the SE USA, seeing the title made me mildly upset. Mostly because it's a flaw in my logic where it sounds fine if you say "Why'd" and not "Why did". "Why'd lead used to be put in Gas?" vs. "Why did lead used to be added to gasoline?" I dunno, my linguistic side wants to hurl either way, my natural state of being simply accepts the abbreviated version, and all of me rejects the extended title.
This video is a bit incomplete, ethanol was used for a while, but was crowded out BECAUSE of the tetra ethyl lead, it was competing, not independently filling the market demand. Ethanol blends were already reducing knock before tetra ethyl lead was used.
Was the United States the only place that had leaded petrol? Was it a common additive elsewhere? Or did placed like Europe use some other kind of additive to increase octane instead? I always remember when visiting Germany as a kid (70s & 80s) the cars had a sweeter smell, was that lead or incomplete combustion I was smelling?
