>> It was the smell of Hydrogen Sulphide(H2S);In those days,it took several minutes for the catalyst
>> to reach operating temperature.When I left the industry almost twenty years ago,catalysts were reaching operating
>> temperature within thirty seconds
You don't get the rotten egg smell at all now, owing mainly I'd guess to the the 90% reduction in allowed sulphur content imposed 10 years ago.
The characteristic smell in the pre-cat days was mostly unburnt hydrocarbons and burning oil. It's very noticeable to me whenever I follow one now.
The general attitude to pollution now is fairly irresponsible but it was on a different scale in those days, as if the sea, the land and the air were so extensive that none of it made any difference and somehow went back to nature without doing any harm. Now it is probably impossible to eat food or breathe air that doesn't contain microplastics.
On which digression I was horrified the other day to see that the yellow microfibre cloths I use for car cleaning among other things were shedding tiny fibres despite having been washed many times, no doubt putting millions of the things into the water supply. The trouble is the blasted things are so much easier to use than cotton stockinette and chammy leathers but I have decided not to buy any more. I suspect it's a lost cause.
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Whatever Happened to... 
Whatever Happened to... 
