Petrol Industry

Gasoline or petrol is a petroleum-derived liquid mixture, primarily used as fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of aliphatic hydrocarbons, enhanced with iso-octane or the aromatic hydrocarbons toluene and benzene to increase its octane rating. Small quantities of various additives are common, for purposes such as tuning performance or reducing emissions. Some mixtures also contain significant quantities of ethanol as a partial alternative fuel.

Before gasoline was used as fuel for engines, it was sold in small bottles as a treatment against lice and their eggs. At that time, the word Petrol was a trade name. This treatment method is no longer common because of the inherent fire hazard and the risk of dermatitis. The name gasoline is similar to that of other petroleum products of the day, most notably petroleum jelly, a highly purified heavy distillate, which was branded Vaseline. The trademark Gasoline was never registered, and thus became generic.

Gasoline was also used in kitchen ranges and for lighting, and is still available in a highly purified form, known as camping fuel or white gas, for use in lanterns and portable stoves. The word "petrol" was first used in reference to the refined substance in 1892 (it was previously used to refer to unrefined petroleum), and was registered as a trade name by British wholesaler Carless, Capel & Leonard at the suggestion of Frederick Richard Simms. Carless's competitors used the term "motor spirit" until the 1930s, but never officially registered it as a trademark. It has also been suggested that the word gasoline was coined by Edward Butler in 1887.

In many countries gasoline is called Benzine or some variant. The usage derives from the chemical benzene, not from Bertha Benz, who used chemists' shops to purchase the gasoline for her famous drive from Mannheim to Pforzheim in 1888. In the United States the oil was not "as good", and the oil industry had to invest heavily in various expensive boosting systems. This turned out to have benefits: the US industry started delivering fuels of increasing octane ratings by adding more of the boosting agents, and the infrastructure was in place for a post-war octane-agents additive industry. Good crude oil was no longer a factor during wartime, and by war's end American aviation fuel was commonly 130 octane, and 150 octane was available in limited quantities for fighters from the summer of 1944. This high octane could easily be used in existing engines to deliver much more power by increasing the pressure delivered by the superchargers.