Ashless anti-knocks

Many of the ashless anti-knocks are amines or phenols [26] and are related to liquid-phase oxidation inhibitors. They probably work by reacting with active radicals (particularly OH) to produce radicals which are inert. For instance, N-methyl aniline (NMA) CeHsNHCHs probably produces stabilized CeHsNCHs radicals which, because of their resonance stabilization, are unable to react to regenerate active radicals again and may undergo only radical recombination reactions. The rate of radical removal by this process is likely to be limited in the most favourable case by how fast the additive can react with OH to produce stabilized radicals. Although exact rates are not known, this is probably already a fast process for NMA, and unlikely to be very much faster for any other substance. Indeed, the most effective ashless anti-knock found by MacKinven [26] in an extensive study of 970 substances was a tetra-aryl hydrazine, with a molar effectiveness 2.9 times that of NMA. 

As confirmation of an inert radical production mechanism, iodine compounds are particularly effective because of the production of I atoms. However, there are big deficiencies in our understanding of the details of anti-knock chemistry. This is illustrated by the large differences in antiknock effectiveness shown in MacKinven s measurements between substances with apparently very similar composition [27]. As shown in Table 7.3, some of the methyl substituted diphenyl oxalates are quite good antiknocks, with up to 1.1 times the molar effectiveness of NMA. But another is pro-knock. The mechanism responsible for this structure/property dependence is not known. More recently, high effectiveness has been reported for ashless materials related to dialkyl amino fulvenes [28-31], but no credible mechanisms have been published. No ashless anti-knocks have proved sufficiently cost-effective to be used commercially. 

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