Initially attractive because it was cheap and relatively abundant, natural gas also held the advantage of being cleaner burning and far less damaging to the environment, factors that became increasingly important with the passage of the Clean Air Act in the 1970s. Indeed, natural gas has replaced crude oil as the most important source of petrochemical feedstocks. Petrochemical and automotive engineers had already responded to environmental concerns in a variety of ways. As early as the 1940s German émigré Vladimir Haensel invented a type of reforming refining process called platforming that used very small amounts of platinum as a catalyst and produced high-octane, efficient-burning fuel without the use of lead. Haensel's process, which was eventually recognized as one of the most significant chemical engineering technologies of the past 50 years, made the addition of lead to gasoline no longer necessary. Today, more than 85 percent of the gasoline produced worldwide is derived from platforming. Also well ahead of the environmental curve was Eugene Houdry, who had developed catalytic cracking; in 1956 he invented the catalytic converter, a device that removed some of the most harmful pollutants from automobile exhaust and that ultimately became standard equipment on every car in the United States. Other engineers also developed methods for removing more impurities, such as sulfur, during refining, making the process itself a cleaner affair. For its part, natural gas was readily adopted as an alternative to home heating oil and has also been used in some cities as the fuel for fleets of buses and taxicabs, reducing urban pollution. Environmental concerns have also affected the other side of the petrochemical business, leading to sophisticated processes for recycling existing plastic products. Somewhere around the middle of the 20th century, petroleum replaced coal as the dominant fuel in the United States, and petroleum processing technologies allowed petrochemicals to replace environmentally harmful coal tar chemistry. The next half-century saw this dominance continue and even take on new forms, as plastics and synthetic fibers entered the consumer marketplace. Despite increasingly complex challenges, new generations of researchers and engineers have continued to keep the black gold bonanza in full swing.
When retired railroad conductor Edwin Drake struck oil in 1859 in Titusville, Pennsylvania, he touched off the modern oil industry. For the next 40 years the primary interest in oil was as a source of kerosene, used for lighting lamps. Then came the automobile and the realization that the internal combustion engine ran best on gasoline, a byproduct of the process of extracting kerosene from crude oil. As the demand grew for gasoline to power not only cars but also internal combustion engines of all kinds, chemical engineers honing their refining techniques discovered a host of useful byproducts of crude—and the petrochemical industry was born. Oil had truly become black gold. When retired railroad conductor Edwin Drake struck oil in 1859 in Titusville, Pennsylvania, he touched off the modern oil industry. For the next 40 years the primary interest in oil was as a source of kerosene, used for lighting lamps. Then came the automobile and the realization that the internal combustion engine ran best on gasoline, a byproduct of the process of extracting kerosene from crude oil. As the demand grew for gasoline to power not only cars but also internal combustion engines of all kinds, chemical engineers honing their refining techniques discovered a host of useful byproducts of crude—and the petrochemical industry was born. Oil had truly become black gold. 1901 North America’s first oil gusher North America’s first oil gusher blows at the Spindletop field near Beaumont in southeastern Texas, spraying more than 800,000 barrels of crude into the air before it can be brought under control. The strike boosts the yearly oil output in the United States from 2,000 barrels in 1859 to more than 65 million barrels by 1901. 1913 High-pressure hydrogenation process developed German organic chemist Friedrich Bergius develops a high-pressure hydrogenation process that transforms heavy oil and oil residues into lighter oils, boosting gasoline production. In 1926 IG Farben Industries, where Carl Bosch had been developing similar high-pressure processes, acquires the patent rights to the Bergius process. Bergius and Bosch share a Nobel Prize in 1931. 1913 New method of oil refining Chemical engineers William Burton and Robert Humphreys of Standard Oil patent a method of oil refining that significantly increases gasoline yields. Known as thermal cracking, the chemists discover that by applying both heat and pressure during distillation, heavier petroleum molecules can be broken down, or cracked, into gasoline’s lighter molecules. The discovery is a boon to the new auto industry, whose fuel of choice is gasoline.
1920s Fischer-Tropsch method By using fractional distillation, two German coal researchers create synthetic gasoline. Known as the Fischer-Tropsch method, the gasoline is produced by combining either coke and steam or crushed coal and heavy oil, then exposing the mixture to a catalyst to form synthetic gasoline. The process plays a critical role in helping to meet the increasing demand for gasoline as automobiles come into widespread use and later for easing gasoline shortages during World War II. 1920s Fischer-Tropsch method By using fractional distillation, two German coal researchers create synthetic gasoline. Known as the Fischer-Tropsch method, the gasoline is produced by combining either coke and steam or crushed coal and heavy oil, then exposing the mixture to a catalyst to form synthetic gasoline. The process plays a critical role in helping to meet the increasing demand for gasoline as automobiles come into widespread use and later for easing gasoline shortages during World War II.
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