MANUFACTURING PLANTS FOR TETRAETHYLLEAD AND INTERMEDIATES ON THE MISSISSIPPI RIVERNORTH OF BATON ROUGE,LA. Tetraethyllead is manufactured and blended with other components of antiknock fluid; sodium and chlorine are made from salt brine piped from a near-by well; an*hyl chloride is manufactured from chlorine and gases from an adjacent refinery.
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T
HE story of the research problem that in the discoverv of tetraethvlle* as a n
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Ethyl Gasoline C
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antiknock material, and “the developtoday ment of manufacturing and distributin&cilities *ih allow its use in three fourths of all gasoline sold in the United States and Canada, is an example of the American Way in practice. It is, of course, only a small part of the larger story-the great story of the development of the automobile. All Americans over forty years of age know from personal experience the great difference between the automobiles of today and those of their childhood, Younger people should read the story of that change carefully and prayerfully. For in the dreams, the speculation, the science, the endless labors t h a t have made the automobile, and the entire automotive and oil industries what they are, we find living illustrations of nearly all that is right and wrong with the American way of business. And we find that the “wrongs” disturb us very slightly in contrast to the magnitude of “rights” that have swallowed and digested them. T h a t story of the automobile isn’t one story. It is a multitude of stories. Tetraethyllead has only the role of a contributing factor to the main story; yet of this detail alone the following things may be truthfully said: Tetraethyllead broke down one of the barriers that was blockin the road to automotive progress-the barrier of knock. ?t has thus added to the power and performance of over fifty million automobiles. It has contributed to the constant improvements in quality 504
and the steadily decreasing price of billions of gallons of gasoline annually. ration, Detroit, Mich. It has made possible the present peaks in performance of airplanes. It has strengthened our national defense. It has lowered costs in power farming and truck transport. It has caused the construction of millions of dollars worth of factories, laboratories, transportation, and blending facilities, for its manufacture, distribution, and use. It has given temporary and permanent employment to many. It has uncovered fresh sources of mineral wealth by “mining” the waters of the ocean successfully. It has aided oil companies in the conservation of petroleum in their gasoline refining processes. It has paid taxes towards the support of government. It has made a profit for those corporations that had the courage to go through a long and difficult “shirt-losing period” because they believed that antiknock gasoline would eventually succeed.
THOMAS MIDGLEY, JR.
Those are large and valuable rewards to claim for one research project, for the development of one of industry’s many discoveries. But they have been carefully weighed and worded in the spirit of conservatism. They are not stated here to boast of the importance of work with which the writer was personally concerned, nor to boost the fortunes of the corporation which is now manufacturing and selling products arising from the original discovery. They are stated to show the rewards to a nation that come from freedom of research, freedom of capital, protection by patents, and opportunity for ultimate profit; to point to the necessity for these freedoms if America is to continue to benefit from other such discoveries.
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
VOL. 31, NO. 5
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DISCOVERY OF TETRAETHYLLEAD The popular notion of chemical and engineering developments is still that of the long-haired inventor in an attic who makes a great discovery and is swindled out of a milliondollar fortune by a slick promoter. The truth more often is like the story of Ethyl, which was over three million dollars in the red before it began to earn a profit for those who had backed it. We did not stumble on tetraethyllead by accident. We did not go into the laboratory on Tuesday and come out on Friday with our product. We did not even know what we were looking for, until a lot of time and money had been spent. The research started because General Motors began having trouble with knock in motors. Charles F. Xettering fathered the program and took responsibility for the thousands of dollars that were needed through months and years of discouraging work. We started in a little room, in a little way; and as the problem appeared more and more difficult, more money was poured into it and T. A. Boyd and Carroll Hochwalt were assigned to work with me. We combed the shelves of chemical supply houses, the volumes of reference libraries, and the possibilities of the periodic table of elements. And when, after years of research which might have seemed fruitless to many people, we came to tetraethyllead; it was no accident. We knew before we ever manufactured the first test sample of this difficult compound that it was probably what we were looking for. The popular idea might be that when we found tetraethyllead we shouted hosannas for it, and all marched in to ask the boss for a raise. Actually, there wasn’t a pause in the program. We started spending more money, doing more research, and looking for other ingredients to go with tetraethyllead, to make up a commercially practical compound that could transfer the antiknock qualities of tetraethyllead to a gallon of gasoline. Thousands of miles were run in various types of automobile tests, hundreds of hours of operation were put in by engines on dynamometer blocks, running day and night. We thought we knew what we had, but we knew we knew very little about it. We had to find the answers, the right answers, to many questions. For example, we found that we needed ethylene dibromide to mix with the tetraethyllead. And if we were ever to sell enough of the compound to make the discovery a real commercial success, we would need a lot of it. Bromine was then an expensive chemical used primarily for making photographic plates and headache powders. The principal known reservoir of bromine is the sea. But there are only approximately 67 parts of bromine in a million parts of sea water. Could it be extracted commercially? I n the course of what Mr. Kettering calls the typical “shirt-losing era” of a new industry, the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation spent $500,000 for a boat called the S. S. EthyE, to “mine” the waters of the ocean for bromine. It didn’t work very well; but it proved a point that ultimately resulted in the formation of a joint subsidiary company with Dow Chemical. Today the EthylDow Chemical Company takes over a million and a half pounds of bromine a month from sea water, a t a plant built among the sand dunes of the North Carolina coast. We also had manufacturing problems. The laboratory method for making a few pounds of tetraethyllead was just a starter. Three plants in succession were built, used awhile, and then abandoned before we learned to make tetraethyllead in substantially the way it is manufactured today. Research work for a project such as Ethyl is never over. It does not stop with a discovery. The corporation which developed and markets tetraethyllead antiknock compounds today has an annual payroll of $370,000 for 112 people engaged in research work. They are trying to improve both
MAY, 1939-Page 505
the product and the manner of use: (1) by finding more efficient methods of manufacture; (2) by cooperating with oil companies on research projects to find better ways of using antiknock compounds in motor fuel; (3) by working with automotive companies on cooperative programs to squeeze greater value from the high-quality gasolines now available; (4) by working with manufacturers of aviation engines on similar problems; ( 5 ) by conducting cooperative research with automotive accessory companies. Perhaps one reason why popular notions of inventions and discoveries-and their commercialization-is so far from the truth, is that after the work is done, we are all inclined t o abbreviate our troubles and skip over the mistakes and blind alleys that cost money and got us nowhere. The story of any research project is usually presented in brief and sounds simple. Ethyl has been presented that way before. It is, therefore, probably wise to discuss it in more detail as the tough, uncompromising problem which i t really was. It should be evident to anyone who knows all the facts, that the
PASSENGER CARON CHASSISDYNAMOMETER (ROLLERS UNDER REARWHEELS)FOR POWER TESTIN LABORATORIES AT SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.
discovery of Ethyl and the benefactions it has brought were possible only because of the American way of business, only because courageous corporate executives had the foresight to invest large sums of money and continue backing an idea, through periods when less astute minds might have dropped it. They would not have done this had they not believed in the end they would make a profit from it for their stockholders. They would not have been able to do it had they not previously made large sums of money for their corporations from other ventures, which allowed them to fmance this one. They would not have been able to do it had there been any law against their taking the chance of losing the money put into it. For it must be remembered, that with only slightly different circumstances the whole project of Ethyl might have been written off a t one time as a $3,000,000 flop. SALES PROBLEMS So far we have discussed only the research part of this project. We have looked a t it from the point of view of the chemist. There is also the role of the salesman to be considered in the traditional shirt-losing period of every large development. We had analyzed our problem, solved it by research, and developed the first methods for manu-
THE A M E R I C A N WAY
facture. Now the product had to be marketed. Ethyl gasoline was first offered to the public in February, 1923. A service station in Ohio attached a contraption to one of its pumps. If a motorist wanted regular gasoline, the attendant simply pumped. If he wanted antiknock gasoline, the attendant would turn a pet cock and drops of fluid were ejected into the gasoline as it was being pumped through the hose into the automobile. Car owners noticed the difference and told each other about it. “Stops knocks”; “more power on hills”; “cooler engine”, they said. Other service stations installed the contraptions, and finally our salesmen were able to persuade a few oil companies to blend the drops with their gasoline. Manu-
approximately fifty times the 1,800,000 potential horsepower of Boulder Dam. The final outcome has been better cars and fuels for the public a t lower prices (much lower if you deduct the increased taxes on gasoline) ; the result has been more cars sold, more gasoline bought, and more jobs created.
COOPERATTON WITH OTHER INDUSTRIES Of course, progress-which always means changes-in engine design kept turning up new problems. T o cooperate with the oil and automotive industries in their attempts to solve these problems the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation established laboratories a t Detroit and in California. These later research workers have studied the effect of increased comnression ratios on nower and economy, metallurgy, ignition systems, heat losses to the cooling water, and exhaust gases. They have studied the distribution of fuels in intake manifolds as this problem has concerned both oil and automotive companies in recent years. With an eye to the future, they are studying the problems of supercharging. Working in close cooperation with these industries, as well as the aviation industry, truck and bus industries, and many accessory companies, Ethyl engineers have attacked problems connected with the use of antiknock fuels. Another field in which the continuing efforts of research have led to tangible results is power farming. Five years ago, all tractors were designed with low-compression motors to burn kerosene, distillate, or gasoline. But farmers who burned gasoline in those tractors got only part of the power that was inherent in INTERIOR OF A REFINERY “BLENDING PLANT”,WHEREETHYL FLUID Is MIXED their fuel. Why not build tractors with highWITH GASOLINE compression automobile-type engines capable of using gasoline efficiently? This would obGasoline is pumped through the horizontal pipe (lower right corner) creating a vacuum in the adjoining line, which draws fluid from tank for blending. viously increase the market for leaded gasoThe entire tank is cradled on a scale, so that amounts of fluid withdrawn can be lines. It would also, we knew, give the farmer measured by weight. something he wanted-a tractor more powerful, more flexible, less balky, in which the old bugaboo of oil dilution would be removed. Tractor engineers facturing costs were such that we could not offer the oil who had this belief found ready and able assistance in Ethyl companies a profit on the fluid. It cost them 3 cents for 3 engineering laboratories. Salesmen sold the idea of highcc. of tetraethyllead, and they charged only 3 cents to the compression tractors, explaining their merits to the farmer and motorists for putting it into a gallon. the tractor dealers. Specifications were drawn regulating the quality of gasoline Today, most tractor manufacturers make high-compression with which Ethyl fluid could be blended. Procedures were tractors, and in a recent survey of Master Farmers, five established which restricted the blending of fluid with gasoline of every six who mentioned what type their next machine t o fully equipped blending plants in oil refineries or in large would be, specified a high-compression model. There’s the terminals of oil companies. A double-check inspection of American way for you, in miniature. We helped the farmer quality was set up, with laboratories spotted about the counand the tractor business with research, capital, and salesman try constantly checking gasoline samples to determine their ship, and in doing so we increased our own business. octane rating, gum or sulfur content, and other characterI n the course of its work Ethyl has grown into a consideristics. This inspection, of course, was devised primarily to able organization. Division offices are located in ten key protect the business health of the Ethyl Corporation. It also cities across the continent. A chemical research laboratory has been of service to the motorist, although the typical large is located in Detroit, as well as the engineering laboratories refiner today maintains standards of quality more exacting there and in San Bernardino, Calif. Six smaller laboratories than our requirements. at convenient points through the country are maintained for The sale of tetraethyllead to a number of large oil compatesting fuels. Large manufacturing plants are located a t nies made possible higher compression pressures in engines, Baton Rouge, La., Kure Beach, N. C., and Deepwater, N. J. with correspondingly better fuel efficiency and engine perThe total investment and the total number of people emformance. The gradual appearance of these high-compresployed either directly or indirectly made i t a big business. sion automobile engines is interwoven with a number of other All its originators were trying to do was to make an engine advances, such as higher engine speeds, better metals, and the run better, but in this research, as in most others, the signifiBum total of hundreds of minor changes, each adding its cant benefits came as unpredictable offshoots to the main increment of improvement. It is therefore hard to measure investigation. This is entirely appropriate, however, for the independent effect of leaded gasoline on automobile in my opinion progress is the usual by-product of the American engines, but we can say confidently that the existence of way of business. leaded gasoline has added annually to American automobiles 506
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
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