A gasoline can from the Midwest Can Company

Gasoline or petrol is a petroleum-derived liquid mixture, primarily used as fuel in internal combustion engines. It also is used as a powerful solvent much like acetone.

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 engine performance or reducing harmful exhaust emissions. Some mixtures also contain significant quantities of ethanol as a partial alternative fuel.

Most current or former Commonwealth countries use the term "petrol", abbreviated from petroleum spirit. In North America, the word "gasoline" is the common term, where it is often shortened in colloquial usage to simply "gas". It is not a genuinely gaseous fuel (unlike, for example, liquefied petroleum gas, which is stored under pressure as a liquid, but returned to a gaseous state before combustion). The term petrogasoline is also used.

In aviation, mogas, short for motor gasoline, is used to distinguish automobile fuel from aviation gasoline, or avgas. In British English, "gasoline" can refer to a different petroleum derivative historically used in lamps, but this usage is relatively uncommon.

Early uses

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.Fact: date=April 2009

In the United States, gasoline was also sold as a cleaning fluid to remove grease stains from clothing. Before dedicated filling stations were established, early motorists bought gasoline in cans to fill their tanks.

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 eventually 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.

During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), pétrole was stockpiled in Paris for use against a possible German-Prussian attack on the city. Later in 1871, during the revolutionary Paris Commune, rumours spread around the city of pétroleuses, women using bottles of petrol to commit arson against city buildings.

Etymology

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.