denatured alcohol

[Mick]

WTF is it?
i have been looking for it for quite a while and i haven't found a thing. the closest i can find is denatured ethanol(which is metholated spirits.) unfortunatly, that doesn't work for washing the coating off my AN prills
i assume its also known as denatured methanol?
i've seen it refered to as that in the forum searches i have done(please correct me if i am wrong)

what i am looking for is a brand name, or just an idea of what it is commonly used for - atleast that way i can get an idea of where to look, and what to ask for, because people don't seem to know what denatured alcohol is(i think most people i have asked think its a alcoholic drink)

thanks for you help.

[DBSP]

Denatured alcohol is denatured ethanol. Mostly about 95% pure the rest is additives that makes it taste and smell bad so that you can't drink it. It is allso availible as window cleaner for cars, you know you pour it into a tank with a pump that sprays it over the windows when you turn the window "cleaners" on.
<img src="http://www.kemetyl.se/databas/produktblad/bilder/trod.jpg" alt="" />
This it most common type of denautured alcohol in sweden.
<img src="http://www.kemetyl.se/databas/produktblad/bilder/t-bla.jpg" alt="" /> And this is the window cleaner. I use this one to rinse my AP.

<small>[ April 27, 2002, 12:33 PM: Message edited by: DBSP ]</small>

[10fingers]

Denatured alcohol is only one thing, ethanol that has something added to it to make it unsafe to drink.
It's used as a solvent and I have seen it for sale in most hardwares in the paint section.

[megalomania]

Denatured alcohol is ethyl alcohol that has has some sort of denaturant added to make it unfit for human consumption. Ethyl alcohol carries a hefty tax on it when made, to avoid that tax when selling ethyl alcohol for fuel or solvent purposes (everything but drinking) they add a chemical that makes you sick if you drink it, this chemical can be any of hundreds of different chemicals, but usually a simple methyl alcohol will do the trick.

Denatured ethanol is denatured alcohol, there are no other alcohols that are denatured because they cannot be consumed. Since ethyl alcohol will not work for you, try isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol, available at any drug store and grocery store), or methyl alcohol (wood alcohol, available as fuel line water remover or fuel line antifreeze). Always check the label because the common names for "alcohol", "rubbing alcohol", and "fuel line antifreeze" can refer to either methyl, ethyl, and isopropyl alcohols.

<small>[ April 27, 2002, 12:44 PM: Message edited by: megalomania ]</small>

[DBSP]

If you buy methanol in sweden you have to give the company your name and adress and you will be out on a list. This is because it is so dangerous.

[Demolition]

Just to confuse things a little bit more. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />
<img src="ftp://hand@members.optusnet.com.au/denatured1.JPG" alt="" />

Ive always seen metho for sale in supermarkets but this was the first bottle I ever saw which had "denatured alcohol" written on it.
My AN prills dont have a coating (blasting grade AN :D ) so I cant really say if it would take the coating off fertilizer grade.

<small>[ April 28, 2002, 11:00 AM: Message edited by: Demolition ]</small>

[Mick]

thanks for your help guys, so far ethyl alcohol hasn't worked, so i'll see if i can find some methyl alcohol. and if that don't work i'll find some isopropyl alcohol.

thanks for the help once again.

[YTS]

Isopropyl alchol is used in high concentration in car screen wash . Some of the cheaper brands use a methonal 20 to 50% mix . You can get the isopropyl screenwash for about £3 in uk

[YTS]

Sorry for £3 for 5Ltrs screenwash . what is isopropyl alchol made from i know how ethonal& methonal are produced

[kingspaz]

this allways confuses me, all the old names to chemicals.
would i be right in saying that isopropyl alcohol is the same as propan-2-ol?
if its the same i believe its made by the hyrdolosis of 2,chloropropane.

[Rhadon]

Yes, you're right, Kingspaz: isopropyl alcohol is propan-2-ol. Your way to synthesize it is new to me, but of course that doesn't mean it won't work. Anyway, it is usually made by oxidation of propane and separation of the resulting isomeres.

[green beret]

Mick, if you are after Isopropyl Alchohol, you can get it at Coles etc. in a small green bottle with the picture of a crocodile on the front......cant remember the brand name. I think it might be "Isocol" or something.

Also could you tell me where you got your AN, or would you be interested in selling some?

[Rob]

The denatured alcohol (meths) sold here in the UK contains:

90% Ethanol
9.5% Methonal
0.5% Pyridine
traces of purple dye

[mr.evil]

Hey Rob,
here in Holland we have exactly the same alcohol, on the bottle it says 'brand spiritus' wich means something like 'fire water'.
but it isn't very well for Pyrotechnics or Chemistry because of the huge pollution in it, and also the bad smell is very shitty.(when working with it, my lab stinks days after it.... :( )

Cya

[kingspaz]

sure it would be possible to purify it easily by distillation.
also methanol is available as a model engine fuel. its available along with pure nitromethane for mixing your own fuel blends.

[Pu239 Stuchtiger]

My denatured alcohol is denatured by the following compounds: methanol, methyl isobutyl ketone, ethyl acetate, rubber solvent.

[Mick]

green beret, i can't for the life of me remember where i got my AN from (i mean, i know where i got it from, i just can't remember the name of the place)

they were pretty security concious when i bought, they made sign the invoice, and produce ID along with it (luckly i have i found someone elses keycard a few months back, so i just used that)

also, i spotted that iscol stuff the other while i was shopping, but i was in a rush so i walked past it - but i was thinking in the back of my mind "$20 says thats what i'm looking for"
so i'll some up later today.

[Mendeleev]

Couldn't you just use acetone to wash the coating off? It's sold in gallon cans at home depot.

[sauvin]

I was under the impression that denatured alcohol cannot be un-denatured; iirc, the boiling points of ethanol and methanol are so close together that it's not practical to try.

I'm expecting some glassware to arrive over the next couple of weeks; one of the uses I'll have for it will be in solvent recovery. As an example, when I buy a vodka that I simply can't drink because it's just too awful, I'll "recover" the ethanol in it :>

[grandyOse]

other than flavored vodka, can anyone really tell the difference in taste? Isn't vodka just alcohol and water? Yeah, some "water" is pretty bad, disolved minerals and all, but don't distillers try to use reasonably good water?

ethanol and methanol form an azeotropic mixture which means that both alcohols will distill at the same temperature. Sorry, I don't know the concentration. But the point is, denatured alcohol cannot be distilled to get rid of the methanol. The government is very thorough about collecting tax, and they don't want any non-taxed drinkable alcohol floating around. There is no way to "nature" denatured alcohol. Perhaps some enterprising organic chemist will find a way to react the ethanol with something else which can be separated, then "unreacted" to yield ethanol. It would probably cost about $500 a gallon, but at least you wouldn't have to pay tax on it.

[Xioa]

Doesn't 70% nitric acid form an azeotropic mixture with the water? However, there's ways (that I haven't read into enough to understand) to make 70% nitric acid >90% concentrated. Couldn't the same principle be used to concentrate the denatured alcohol?

[Dave Angel]

If you are talking about distilling the alcohol with conc. sulphuric acid then this is not viable, as conc. sulphuric reacts with ethanol (via a dehydration reaction) to form ethene, if memory serves.

[Marvin]

Methanol and ethanol dont form an az mixture, but they distil almost in proportion so you need a very good fractionating column to get reasonable seperation. Its why they use methanol as a denaturent.

[tmp]

I've distilled alcohol. The acetone, acetaldehyde, and methanol all come
off the mash between 65 and 70 C. The ethanol doesn't come off until 78 C.
The key is temperature control although it's likely that denatured alcohol has
other compounds close to ethanol's boiling point which makes it difficult if
not impossible to use fractional distillation.

[frogfot]

I got a question to swedes out there. What is the true composition of denaturated alcohol "T-röd" or "Röd etanol", and are theese same products?
Google gives different results, they mention isopropanol, MEK, methanole, ethyl acetate and bitrex (bitter compound), but sources are not reliable..

I've bought "Röd etanol", and redistilled it to remove annoying color, it destilled at about 78*C all the way. Than I refluxed it 1h with NaOH, in hope to decompose all ethyl acetate and polymerise MEK to heavier compounds that could be removed with another destillation.. This was then redestilled and it gave same 78*C.. (1h was not enough to polymerise MEK anyway since it probably got too low conc..)

I used this "purifyed" product to make diethyl ether, after removing unreacted alcohols with conc CaCl2 soln. I dryed it over CaCl2 over night and redestilled it.
But for some reason I only got half of the expected (book) yield and rest was some liquid with bp of about 60*C (can it be diisopropyl ether?)

Any experience with same brand name of alcohol?

[Marvin]

tmp, here industrial meths is methanol and ethanol only as far as I can tell, no nasty smell or colouring, its available to people in painting and decorating trades. Mineralised meths also has crude pyridine and a violet dye added.

I cant comment on mash distilling as I dont have any data here, but just methanol and ethanol form a neer ideal mixture. A worked example is here,

http://www.svce.ac.in/~msubbu/SolvedProblems/MT/VaporLiquidEquil.htm

In terms of most reactions the methanol will not matter, in those that do a single run through a half decent fractionating column will probably reduce it to <1%.

Alcoholic drinks typically have max methanol concentrations in the region of 100ppm or less, so in terms of making it good enough to drink its unfeasable given the VBE data on the page. Particually without a method of actually measuring the exact amount of methanol remaining.

frogfot, interesting problem and I have no idea what would cause it. Secondary alcohols we might expect to dehydrate rather than form an ether, and the ether should have a higher boiling point, not lower. Odd.

[vurr]

aseotrope:4.0 weight % water and 96.0 w% ethanol bp:78.17 degC
common distillation process does not give higher ethanol concentration.never.

some other samples of w%-boiling temp:
95%-78.2c
90%-78.4
80%-79.1
70%-80.0
60%-81.0
40%-83.1c (here "vodka" boils)
30%-84.5
20%-87.1
10%-91.5
0.5%-99.4c
so:boiling temp rises and distilled ethanol-water conc. falls...
-------------
if not for drinking: remaining water can be removed with some(little more than contained water) bensene C6H6 addition to second destillation:
first comes out triple mix:ethanol-water-bensene
second out:ethanol-bensene
third out:~clean ethanol

[Jhonbus]

Isopropyl alcohol is propan-2-ol? I always thought it was isopropanol!

[vulture]

Ehrm, Isopropanol = propan-2-ole = 2-hydroxypropane....

Iso means the functional group is not on the last carbon in the chain, but the one before the last. As propane has only 3 carbon atoms, the before last one is the second one.. :)

[Jhonbus]

I was thinking of:


CH3 CH3
| |
H3C--C--CH3 H3C--C--CH2OH
| |
CH3 CH3

Isopropane Isopropanol



I suppose these would be better known as 2,2-dimethylpropane and hydroxy-2,2-dimethylpropane respectively and perhaps my nomenclature us totally wrong here, but those are the names I have always given to these compounds.

PS: I hope these structures look alright, it took me a million years to get them positioned.