Engine oil seems so simple. It's slippery. It keeps metal parts from fusing together. It's messy, especially when it has been squeezed, slung, and sprayed around the inside of a hot engine for ...

"The past," said English novelist L.P. Hartley in his 1953 novel The Go-Between, "is a foreign country; they do things differently there." As far as book openings go, it's pretty solid. Right up there ...

In the "What's That Stuff?" on motor oil, Steve Ritter mentions zinc dialkyldithiophosphates (ZDDP) as a key antiwear agent (C&EN, March 13, page 38). It has been used in motor oils for more than 60 ...

Motor oil contains chemical additives that extend how long engines can run without failure, but, despite decades of ubiquity, how such additives actually work to prevent this damage have remained a ...

Under normal circumstances, most modern engine oil and gasoline brands work fine on their own to keep your engine running smoothly. But there may be cases where even the best of them could use a ...

Walk into any parts store and you'll see the rows of glossy bottles promising to stop engine wear, boost fuel economy, and make your old clunker run like it just rolled out of the factory. The auto ...

Titanium, a protean element with applications from pigments to aerospace alloys, could get a new role as an environmentally friendly additive for automotive oil. Titanium, a protean element with ...