Component of Gasoline
As a gasoline (petrol) additive, benzene increases the octane rating and reduces knocking. As a consequence, gasoline often contained several percent benzene before the 1950s, when tetraethyl lead replaced it as the most widely used antiknock additive. With the global phaseout of leaded gasoline, benzene has made a comeback as a gasoline additive in some nations. In the United States, concern over its negative health effects and the possibility of benzene's entering the groundwater have led to stringent regulation of gasoline's benzene content, with limits typically around 1%. European petrol specifications now contain the same 1% limit on benzene content. The United States Environmental Protection Agency introduced new regulations in 2011 that lowered the benzene content in gasoline to 0.62%.
Famous quotes containing the words component and/or gasoline:
“... no one knows anything about a strike until he has seen it break down into its component parts of human beings.”
—Mary Heaton Vorse (1874–1966)
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had to hailbomb, for twelve hours, and when it was all over I walked up.... We didn’t find one of ‘em, not one stinking dink
body. That smell, you know, that gasoline smell. The whole hill. It smelled like ... victory.”
—John Milius, U.S. screenwriter, Francis Ford Coppola (b. 1939)