Today you will not surprise anyone with internal combustion engines, as well as the fact that gasoline of various brands can be bought at every step in any quantity. But after all, once it was not even considered valuable, but was sold as laundry bleach. Who invented and where does gasoline come, how did humanity understand that it could be useful in a car?
Oilfield – the beginning
For the first time, attempts to refine oil began to be practiced at the end of the first half of the 18th century, when the world’s first plant for the purification of this black “slurry” was built in Russian Ukhta. This was done very simply: the boiler heated in an oven, and a tube passed from it through a barrel of water, and the tube itself dispensed the product into an empty container. The purified product was a household helper that used for various purposes.
This continued until 1825, when Michael Faraday, an English physicist with a worldwide reputation, gave the world ready gasoline. Interestingly, he gave the name from the Arabic word translated as incense, because the basis for this invention was put to him from the land of Asia Minor. The creator immediately noted that the substance is highly flammable.
50 years later, the Russian scientist Shukhov became interested in the problem of transportation and storage of oil. In 1873 he designed an oil barge, and in 1889 he created the world’s first installation for processing oil on a large scale. This was a huge breakthrough, because before that, despite the discovery of Faraday half a century ago, only kerosene and lubricants were still obtained from oil in large volumes. The gasoline itself has been simply poured out, considering it a waste until 1932, when the essence of this “incense” was already known to the whole world.
Interesting to know! Shukhov launched the first oil refinery in Russia in 1932, already being an 80-year-old man. But it is this person who is still remembered as the one who invented the world’s first high-octane gasoline.
How did gasoline come to be used for car fuel?
Where does my gasoline come? The inventor of the first internal combustion engine – Daimler. I have been trying for a long time to find a substance on which the machine will work best. They tried to pour water, alcohol, kerosene, but it was underestimated gasoline that really showed itself.
Interest in automobiles gradually grew, but despite their rapid development, the capacity for the production of gasoline was scarce and it was difficult to acquire fuel. The first gas station in the States appeared in Seattle in 1907, and 15 years later the first dispensers came. It was only in the 30s of the last century that electric motors were used in such dispensers for automatic unloading of fuel.
The years passed. The quality of gasoline was gradually changing, stratification into its classes took place, filling stations were improved. Today mankind does not experience problems with refueling and can use gasoline to the extent that it needs.