Author Topic: Houdry Process for Catalytic Cracking - How a Frenchman helped Allies win WW2  (Read 161 times)

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Offline IsailedawayfromFR

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The first full-scale commercial catalytic cracker for the selective conversion of crude petroleum to gasoline went on stream at the Marcus Hook Refinery of Sun Company (now Sunoco, Inc.) in 1937. Pioneered by Eugene Jules Houdry (1892-1962), the catalytic cracking of petroleum revolutionized the industry. The Houdry process conserved natural oil by doubling the amount of gasoline produced by other processes. It also greatly improved the gasoline octane rating, making possible today’s efficient, high-compression automobile engines. During World War II, the high-octane fuel shipped from Houdry plants played a critical role in the Allied victory.

Impact of the Houdry Process
The invention and development of gasoline-fueled motor vehicles has had a profound influence on human history providing transport for industrial products and employment for millions and determining where and how we live, work and play. In the United States today, more than half of the 300 million gallons of gasoline used each day to fuel more than 150 million passenger cars is produced by catalytic-cracking technology. High-octane gasoline paved the way to high compression-ratio engines, higher engine performance and greater fuel economy.

The most dramatic benefit of the earliest Houdry units was in the production of 100-octane aviation gasoline, just before the outbreak of World War II. The Houdry plants provided a better gasoline for blending with scarce high-octane components, as well as by-products that could be converted by other processes to make more high-octane fractions. The increased performance meant that Allied planes were better than Axis planes by a factor of 15 percent to 30 percent in engine power for take-off and climbing; 25 percent in payload; 10 percent in maximum speed; and 12 percent in operational altitude. In the first six months of 1940, at the time of the Battle of Britain, 1.1 million barrels per month of 100-octane aviation gasoline was shipped to the Allies. Houdry plants produced 90 percent of this catalytically-cracked gasoline during the first two years of the war.

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/houdry.html

Unsure if this article was posted previously, but I come from the oilfield and was not aware of this process and its impact on winning the war.
I attribute that to having to give credit to a french engineer.
No punishment, in my opinion, is too great, for the man who can build his greatness upon his country's ruin~  George Washington