Hydrocarbon Research Group

The author wishes to thank the Hydrocarbon Research Group of the Institute of Petroleum for grants in aid of his work on infrared spectroscopy and hydrogen bondisig, and Dr. D. M. Simpson (Mrs. J. N. Agar) for critically reading the manuscript. 

Early in World War II, the problem of the rapid and certain identification and estimation of the hydrocarbons constituting gasoline and other liquid fuels became pressing in the U. K. as it did here in the U. S. Committees drawn from the oil industry were set up under the Petroleum Board, and later the Ministry of Aircraft Production, for the purpose of solving this problem. The history of this effort on the part of the U. K., which resulted in the establishment of the Hydrocarbon Research Group in 1944, is covered in detail by Bradford (18). 

Liaison of the Hydrocarbon Research Group with the Institute of Petroleum is provided for by the Research Committee of the institute whose chairman sits as an ex-officio member of the group which is composed of the Hydrocarbon Synthesis Panel, the Spectroscopic Panel, and the Mass Spectrometry Panel. The earliest efforts in the U.K. were directed to absorption spectrometry, and (since 1949) to mass spectrometry. 

The Hydrocarbon Research Group of the Institute of Petroleum discontinued its work on synthesis of pure hydrocarbons in 1948. With the establishment of the Mass Spectrometry Panel in 1948, means had to be found to ensure a supply of pure hydrocarbons for calibration purposes. At that time the Chemical Research Laboratories at Teddington (operating under the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research) agreed to supply such hydrocarbons in collaboration with the members of the Hydrocarbon Synthesis Panel (72). 

Many of the reports covering the work of the Hydrocarbon Research Group have been published in various journals. The papers published prior to September 1947 are listed in a report of the group published in that year (74). Many of the reports are unpublished but are on file at the library of the Institute of Petroleum and probably in other British libraries. 

Fifteen references from the Journal of the Institute of Petroleum definitely a result of the work of the Hydrocarbon Research Group appear in the bibliography of this paper. In addition there are 7 references from that journal on the same subject but not apparently connected with the work of the Hydrocarbon Research Group. 

Hydrocarbon Research Group, J. Inst. Petroleum, 35, 350-2 (1949). Report for the year end-... 

YOSHINO, T., and BERNSTEIN, H.J., Molecular Spectroscopy (Proceedings of the Institute of Petroleum and Hydrocarbon Research Group Conference, London), Pergamon Press, New York, 1959. 

The Spectroscopic Panel of the Hydrocarbon Research Group, /. Inst. 

During this period of time we, and a number of other research groups, have been investigating the reactions of highly halogenated aiynes and hetarynes with aromatic hydrocarbons, for the reasons outlined in the introduction. In a reaction of pentafluorophenylmagnesium chloride with ethylene oxide in the presence of benzene, it was shown that, as well as 3-pentafluorophenylethanol (23) a by-product of molecular formula C12H6F4 was produced 43>. 

The activation of methane by microwaves has long been a goal of scientists in attempts to convert this natural gas component into higher hydrocarbons valuable in petrochemistry and the chemical industry. Two pathways are being extensively investigated by research groups all over the world ... 

The Lagow group first entered the perfluoropolyethers field in 1977, by reacting fluorine with inexpensive hydrocarbon polyethers to prepare perfluoropolyethers. In the simplest case (Figure 14.3) poly (ethylene oxide) is converted to perfluoroethylene oxide polymer, a simple reaction chemistry that we first reported in the literature.27 As will be seen later, this direct fluorination technology as well as many new patents from Exfluor Research Corporation have been non-exclusively licensed to the 3M Corporation by the Lagow research group.3 "39... 

Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute and Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1661, USA Eotvos University Budapest, Structural Chemistry Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Puskin u. 11-13, P.O. Box 117, H-1088 Budapest, Hungary Department of Theoretical Chemistry, University of Goteborg, Kemigarden 3, S-41296 Goteborg, Sweden Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060, Japan... 

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