Why was lead added to gasoline and why is lead-free gasoline used in new cars?
Tetraethyl lead (a colorless, oily, poisonous liquid), commonly called “lead,” was used as a gasoline additive for automobiles made between the mid-1940s and the end of the 1970s. There were several reasons for adding lead to gasoline. First, lead improved the way that gasoline burned. Second, it reduced or eliminated the “knocking” sound caused by premature ignition in high-performance large engines and in smaller, high-compression engines. Lead also provided lubrication, which prevented the close-fitting parts of the engine from chafing against one another. New cars (cars made between the 1980s to the present), however, require the use of lead-free gasoline. This is because new cars come with pollution control devices called catalytic converters, and lead destroys the substance used as the catalyst….
