Shell Technology Centre

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Shell Technology Centre
Location within Cheshire
Former names	Shell Research Centre
General information
Type	Automotive and Chemical Research Centre
Location	Cheshire, CH2 4NU
Coordinates	53°16′26″N 2°49′41″W / 53.274°N 2.828°W / 53.274; -2.828
Elevation	90 m (295 ft)
Current tenants	University of Chester
Construction started	1941
Completed	1948
Inaugurated	20 May 1948
Client	Shell Research
Owner	Royal Dutch Shell
Dimensions
Other dimensions	66 acres

The Shell Technology Centre was a chemical and oil products research institute in northern Cheshire, near Stanlow, owned by Anglo-Dutch Shell.

The site was first set up, in 1941, by Shell for the Ministry of Aircraft Production as the Aero Engine Research Laboratory.

It tested a BMW 801 engine with different octane ratings of fuel in the early 1940s.

It returned to Shell ownership in April 1947.^[1] The site had 70 scientists, and around 250 technicians working on quartz combustion tubes, direct fuel injection, butane fuel and the atomisation of fuel. It claimed to be the largest oil research centre in the British Empire. The site was 30 acres and 730,000 square feet, with 900 staff. The site had developed synthetic rubber, paint, varnish and soap.^[2] A new 85-acre chemicals plant was to open in 1948 (the Stanlow refinery).^[3]

Stanlow made around 24,000 tons of chemicals per year. The neighbouring oil refinery opened in 1949, although a smaller plant had been there since 1924. The Shellhaven plant, in Essex, would make 30,000 tons of chemicals.^[4] It opened officially on Thursday 20 May 1948 as Shell Research Centre, by George Legh-Jones.^[5] Also attending the opening was Lt-Gen Jimmy Doolittle, known for his strategy of bombing Germany, John Cunningham (Royal Navy officer), First Sea Lord, and Air Chief Marshal Arthur Barratt^[6]

In the 1950s it was one of three main Shell research sites in the UK, the others being in Kent and Buckinghamshire.

In 1962, Shell spent £25m on research, with 19 worldwide research centres, 8 in Europe, and 11 in the US. ^[7] Pre-ignition was prevented by Ignition Control Additive (ICA), developed at the centre, which was added to Shell petrol, in the UK, from Monday 11 January 1954. ICA contained tricresyl phosphate.

Vehicle testing was conducted at the former RAF Poulton, but in 1957, this was moved to the former RAF Hooton Park, when flying operations ceased.^[8] The site had 1000 staff, with 200 graduates in 1957.^[9]

In October 1960 a three-day international symposium held entitled Wear in the gasoline engine. Prof Frank Philip Bowden FRS spoke at the meeting.^[10]

Testing work in the 1960s took place at the Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry in France, and MIRA in Leicestershire.

By the early 1960s Shell also had its Central Laboratories in Surrey (which opened in 1956), the Tunstall Laboratory, and Chemical Enzymology Laboratory at Sittingbourne in Kent. Shell X-100 was Europe's top selling motor oil (lubrication).

North Sea oil was produced from 1975.

In the mid 1970s Shell had around 5,000 worldwide research staff. In 1975 it closed two of its four British research sites, and one in Delft in the Netherlands. The Surrey research site closed with its 430 employees, with its work transferred work to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Cheshire with the centre's 850 employees. Before the closures, Shell had 2080 employees at British research centres.

The main Dutch research sites were at Amsterdam (Royal Shell Laboratory Amsterdam) and Rijswijk.^[11]

• 1947 Ralph Bagnold FRS
• 1948, CG Williams.
• Dr C.B. Davies
• 1958 R G Larsen, US citizen
• 3 April 1967, Sir Morris Sugden FRS
• December 1975, GG Rose^[12]
• 1980s, David Parkes^[13]
• 1990s, Graeme Sweeney^[14]

• Minister of State for Energy, and Conservative MP for Chester, Sir Peter Morrison visited on Friday 3 March 1989, with the chairman of Shell Ltd, Sir Bob Reid, where a meeting of the Offshore Energy Technology Board was held.^[15]
• Ayrton Senna and Ron Dennis visited in September 1991, and Ayrton Senna visited again in November 1991.^[16]

It has had much contact with local schools. In the 1960s it worked informally with Ellesmere Port County Grammar School for Boys ^[17] In the 1990s it worked with Stanney High School (now Ellesmere Port Church of England College), Pensby High School,^[18] and Helsby High School.^[19]

Shell closed its research centres in the UK in 2014, moving the research to Germany. Shell had sold the neighbouring oil refinery. 280 staff moved to London and Manchester, with 170 to northern Germany.

The site was largely an automotive engineering research facility.^[20] Work was carried out on direct fuel injection and butane-powered engines.

A 5 kW fuel cell had been first demonstrated at Cambridge in 1959 by Francis Thomas Bacon; the site looked into fuel cell technology. A methanol fuel cell was demonstrated in December 1964.^[21] The world's first liquid fuel cell in 1964 was made by the Surface Reactions Division, with K.R. Williams; it was a direct methanol fuel cell, with a sulphuric acid electrolyte, with a palladium-silver membrane.

Work was also conducted at the Koninklijke Shell Laboratorium (now called the Energy Transition Campus Amsterdam). The proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) took over in the late 1980s.

In 1972 it made the world's first fuel cell car, a converted DAF 44.

The site had worked on early jet engines in the war, on work for the Comet, and would work on lubrication and fuel for Concorde. By 1961 around 500 scientists and 350 technicians.^[22]

In 1977 made a record-breaking vehicle that did 1141 mpg, with bicycle wheels. In 1977 it was predicted that oil would run out by 1990. ^[23] A competition run by the centre for fuel efficient vehicles took place on 5 July 1977 at Mallory Park, with teams from 23 universities - the Shell Mileage Marathon. The Shell vehicle had a Honda 50cc engine, and consumed 1252 mpg.

At a Deutsche Shell Mileage Marathon at Hockenheim, it managed 1373 mpg, but three German vehicles consumed less, with one managing 1904 mpg.^[24] Shell now run the Shell Eco-marathon, which largely the only international event of its kind.

In 1994, Shell decided to invest £70m in new buildings at the site, when it moved out from its Kent site at the end of 1995, so environmental research and 140 scientists moved to Cheshire.^[25] Alfred McAlpine started construction in August 1994.^[26] In 1997, Shell took fuel additive research away from Cheshire, when it undertook joint research work with Esso.^[27]

Its scientists researched lubrication with the Ubbelohde viscometer. In 1949 Britain's first diesel train, with an English Electric engine, had Shell lubricating oil. Two-thirds of the lubricating oil made in UK was Shell, with Shell conducting £6m of research in 1949. The centre researched tyres, paint, textiles, and detergents. ^[28] BEA airliners only had Shell lubricants.

In the 1960s automotive companies from Europe would test automotive engines there.^[29]

In May 1985, an automated £14m lubrication oil laboratory opened, called ELMA - Engine Laboratory Modernisation and Automation, with sixteen engine test beds, for different driving cycles.^[30][31] With ELMA, it developed the petrol known as Formula Shell, sold from 19 May 1986.^[32]

The site conducted work with British Leyland on pollution in the late 1960s, due to increasing legislation in the US, costing £100,000 a year, overlooked by Morris Sugden.^[33] BP conducted similar research at its Sunbury Research Centre.

The site researched fuel for the Ferrari F1 team (Scuderia Ferrari).

The site is 66 acres. It was situated north of the M56, north-west of junction 14, at the Hapsford services (a Shell services), to the north of the A5117. It is directly east of the large oil refinery, south of the neighbouring Hooton–Helsby line.

• Castrol Technology Centre in Oxfordshire (owned by BP)
• The former Esso Research Centre in Oxfordshire
• Widnes Laboratory
• Winnington Laboratory