This measures a fuel's resistance to "knocking" or "pinging" during combustion. Higher octane numbers indicate the fuel can withstand more compression before detonating.

💡 In the early days of the oil industry, gasoline was actually considered a useless byproduct of kerosene production and was often discarded! It wasn't until the invention of the automobile in 1892 that its value was truly recognized.

Modern gasoline is rarely just "straight-run" from a distillation tower. To meet high demand and performance standards, refineries use several chemical processes:

Chemical processes that rearrange or combine smaller molecules to create high-octane components. Key Performance Metrics

The quality of gasoline is measured by several critical factors:

Hydrocarbons containing at least one carbon-carbon double bond. Naphthenes: Cyclic alkanes.