the shukhov cracking process is a thermal cracking process invented by vladimir shukhov and sergei gavrilov. shukhov designed and built the first thermal cracking techniques important to the petrochemical industry. his patent (shukhov cracking process – patent of russian empire no. 12926 from november 27, 1891) on cracking was used to invalidate standard oil's patents (burton process – patent of united states no. 1,049,667 on january 7, 1913) on oil refineries. in 1937 the shukhov cracking process was superseded by catalytic cracking. it is still in use today to produce diesel.