An Inventory of Automobile Gases

TESTS reported here, in which exhaust samples from city-driven test cars were analyzed by mass spectrometer, showed a loss of hydrocarbons out of the exhaust ranging from 5% of the weight of fuel entering the carburetor under steady driving to 19% during deceleration.

It would take about 60% curtailment of exhaust content of hydrocarbons, the authors estimate, to return to the relatively smog-free conditions that existed before 1945.

Discussion of this paper starts on p. 618.