Watched a few video’s on this problem, i know that ethanol was available before Tetra ethyl lead, just wondering why ethanol was not used to boost the octane to solve the “pinging/detonation” Problem?
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It was a matter of cost. Petrol is extremely cheap. It is only recently with lots of US government subsidies and high oil prices that ethanol is even in the same ballpark in terms of costs. And you need quite a lot of ethanol to make any significant impact on the octane rating of the fuel. But you only need a tiny bit of TEL to do the same. We are talking about a maximum of 0.2g og TEL per liter petrol in passenger cars. So even though TEL is more expensive per volume the amount you need as a fuel additive makes it a much cheaper alternative to ethanol. In addition to this TEL could be patented so everyone who put TEL in their fuel had to pay a license fee to General Motors.
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