Leaded Gasoline, Freon, and Chlorofluorocarbon

Mr. Thomas Midgley Jr.,  Inventor

Jamie Lincoln Kitman / The Nation 20mar00

Midgley, Thomas, Jr., 1889 - 1944

Born in 1889 in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, Thomas Midgley Jr. was a mechanical engineer with a self-taught knowledge of chemistry and a fondness for strong drink. Though his aptitude would lead the chemical industry to honor him on several occasions during his lifetime, many today might wish he'd never picked up a beaker. In addition to his work on leaded gasoline, this holder of 117 patents memorably discovered the refrigerant dichlorodifluoromethane -- trademarked by his employer, General Motors, as Freon. If you count his discovery of the related family of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), used in aerosol spray propellants, foam for insulation, bedding, packing, solvents, pesticides, defoliants and cleaners, Midgley can truly be said to have left his mark on the world. (Ozone-burning CFCs were banned by the EPA in 1978, leaded gas in 1986.) Often overlooked is his work with Kettering during World War I on a flying bomb, the world's first cruise missile.

Years after his captivating freestyle tetraethyl lead demonstrations, Midgley demonstrated the nontoxicity and nonflammability of Freon by filling his lungs with the vapor, exhaling and extinguishing a lit candle. His final years with GM were devoted to pure research into rubber. When Midgley's inquiries proved unprofitable, GM cut him loose. He died at the age of 55 after four years of paralysis, allegedly caused by polio. An obituary in Time reported that he succumbed to accidental strangulation "by a self-devised harness for getting in and out of bed." Charles Kettering called him "the greatest discovery I ever made."