WESTVILLE - Amid the clouds of environmental hazards posed by gasoline additives, a Purdue University North Central scientist has found a silver lining. Dr. Reynaldo Barreto, assistant professor of chemistry, has found that the additive methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), while hazardous in its own right, does not increase the solubility of other hazardous organic compounds in gasoline.

"Several years ago, the government mandated that various additive compounds such as MTBE should be put into gasoline to improve air quality," Barreto said. "This was done without knowing how these compounds would behave. The result is that while the air is cleaner, MTBE and other compounds pose a serious threat to our water supply."

In a paper* presented this week (March 26-31) to the 219^th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Barreto said his research is disproving previously held theories that MTBE increased the solubility of organic fuel components such as benzene, toluene and others that pollute groundwater. Instead, he found after a two-year study, that MTBE has a minimal effect.

"One of the things we thought was a problem is not," he said.

Despite the good news, MTBE is definitely a hazardous additive, the researcher says. Just one ounce of MTBE is capable of polluting 250,000 gallons of groundwater through leakage of underground gasoline storage tanks. In some parts of the country, MTBE constitutes from one-tenth to one-fourth of every gallon of gasoline.

The recently announced intent by the Clinton administration to ban MTBE within the next three years will not make the problem go away, Barreto said. For one thing, MTBE is already in the groundwater in many places, particularly on the West Coast and massive cleanup efforts will be needed. Second, getting the Clean Air Act amended quickly by Congress could be problematic, particularly in this election year. "As long as the Clean Air Act is not amended, they'll have to add something else," he said. "And it could be even worse."

Barreto has been studying gasoline additives since 1991, when he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Notre Dame. Since coming to Purdue North Central in 1992, he has concentrated on MTBE. Assisting Barreto in his research was Lisa Wozniak, a senior majoring in biology and chemistry at Purdue North Central.

* ENVR 193 (385082) "Effects of oxygenates on the solubility of BTX in water"

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