100-OCTANE. THE STORY BEHIND THE FUEL - Tecno-Libro

A Pole, a Russian and an Frenchman were the key contributors to 100-octane gasoline. This is the fuel which powered .the .new high-compression engines of .US fighter aircraft .from 1937 and later the Merlin engines which helped the RAF's Spitfires and Hurricanes survive the Battle of Britain in 1940. .All three men worked in the United States in the 1930s and their ideas came together to produce 100-octane gasoline. Herman Pines, newly arrived from Poland via Lyon, France, found work hard to come by until he .joined .Universal Oil Products in Chicago in 1930 as a temporary laboratory assistant, He .made a key observation soon afterwards. Experienced Russian chemist Vladimir ipatieff joined him, and the two worked on previously unknown transformations of petroleum to create .very high octane (and very expensive) . alkylates . They faced personal as well as technical challenges. ipatieff was chased by Stalin's agents to return to the Soviet Unio