The way this would usually pan out is the chemist publishes a paper on "this one chemical seems to have high energy density after undergoing a particular reacti

The way this would usually pan out is the chemist publishes a paper on "this one chemical seems to have high energy density after undergoing a particular reaction." Then car companies rush to put it in front of the public. You're really going to include the chemist in the blame there? Tetraethyl is an easy case, because it was car companies who realized its use in fuel in the first place, so we don't even need to figure out who to blame, unless you want to blame its original inventor who did it almost a century earlier, before the gas engine was even invented.