Sun Will Test Less-Polluting Unleaded Gas

Sun Co., a Radnor, Pa.-based oil company, said Wednesday that it would begin tests on new reduced-emission unleaded gasolines, part of the oil industry’s efforts to build a case for gasoline as the clean-burning fuel of the future.

Sun is the second company to unveil such fuels recently. Atlantic Richfield Co. began marketing a cleaner-burning gasoline this month to replace its leaded fuel in Southern California. Unlike the Arco fuel, however, Sun’s gasolines will be usable by virtually every car on the road, including those built after 1975 that run only on unleaded gas.

Sun is one of several oil companies trying to build a case for reformulated gasoline as a clean fuel preferable to methanol, ethanol, compressed natural gas or other alternative fuels that could be mandated by the mid-1990s under President Bush’s proposed clean air legislation. The oil industry has a huge investment in gasoline technology and infrastructure.

Resembles Arco’s

Richard D. Wilson, director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s mobile sources office, applauded any efforts to clean up gasoline but remained skeptical. “I don’t think these fuels are likely to get anywhere near the kind of reductions possible with alternative fuels . . . and I haven’t seen any gasoline formulation so far that does,” he said.

Several versions of Sun’s reformulated gasolines will be tested at a company lab in Marcus Hook, Pa. If the tests are successful, the new gasolines could be available for retail sale in the second half of 1990. Sun markets gasoline under the Sunoco and Atlantic brands mainly in the Northeast.

Sun hopes that the tests will show that use of the gasoline results in a 10% to 15% reduction in emissions.

Sun’s reformulated gasoline resembles Arco’s in being less prone to evaporation, having reduced aromatics and olefins--chemicals that help create ozone--and having higher levels of oxygenates--chemicals that promote cleaner burning. Both the Arco and Sun gasolines also contain methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, a methanol-derived additive that boosts octane.

Separately, Sun also will test a reformulated diesel fuel and a methanol-gasoline mixture.