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A perspective that makes me glad to be a software engineer in the 2010s:The internal controversy came to a head when a delegation of du Pont chemists led by W. F. Harrington visited Standard's Bayway plant in September, 1924. The contrast between the du Pont approach and the Standard approach was evident from the moment Harrington and his team walked through the door. They saw a large, open factory floor with three main work areas. In the first area, a large iron vessel shaped like two ice cream cones stuck top to top was rotating on its side. From within the vessel came the muffled sound of heavy explosions as sodium reacted violently with ethyl chloride and lead. As the double cone rotated, steel agitation balls churned through the boiling sodium to ensure proper mixing. When the reaction calmed down, a crane moved the double cone to the second work area, where workers unbolted the hatches over the narrow ends, releasing concentrated fumes from inside. They attached steam lines and condensers, and tetraethyl lead was distilled in much the same way that whiskey is distilled from a vat of beer.
When the distillation was over, workers opened the iron vessel once again and scraped the steaming, leftover lead mush through a grate in the floor with shovels, gloves and boots. As the mush went through the grate, workers recovered the steel balls that would be used to agitate the next batch.
From this paper on the discovery of tetraethyl lead, the lead in leaded gasoline and still a component of modern avgas.
When the distillation was over, workers opened the iron vessel once again and scraped the steaming, leftover lead mush through a grate in the floor with shovels, gloves and boots. As the mush went through the grate, workers recovered the steel balls that would be used to agitate the next batch.
From this paper on the discovery of tetraethyl lead, the lead in leaded gasoline and still a component of modern avgas.