For Christmas I got a book called "The American Gas Station" which is a
pictoral I'd highly recommend. Here's a brief history: "With a team of
research scientists at General Motors [sorry guys] Thomas Midgley and Chas.
Kettering developed an important gasoline additive. By installing a quartz
window in the side of an engine cylinder, they saw visual clues to the cause
of engine ping by watching the fuel burn. Experimenting with numerous
chemicals, the group discovered that when small quantities of tetraethyl
lead were added to gasoline, a decrease in detonaiton or "knocking" would
result. General Motors and Standard Oil Company of NJ joined to form the
Ethyl Gasoline Corp. in 1924 and introduced the fuel additive to the public
under the Ethyl name.
It goes on to talk about different early additives, "Gulf No-Nox" used
aluiminum chloride, "Phillips Poly-Gas" introduced in 1927 used
polymerization, "Sinclair Power-X" used the "x-chemical," actually nickel.
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