Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Best place for pure high proof ethanol online?

RogueRose - 20-5-2016 at 11:33

Any ideas where to order?

UC235 - 20-5-2016 at 15:07

Purchase Perfumers Alcohol (specially denatured alcohol), such as SDA 40-B which is a commonly available formulation. It's denatured with 0.12% t-BuOH and denatorium benzoate. If you buy less than 5gal in a year, you do not need an ATF permit. While the tBuOH is going to be impossible to remove, it shouldn't affect a whole lot. I think it is mostly present as a taggant to detect diversion of the product for human consumption which would illegally sidestep taxes on it.

Alternately, go to the liquor store, buy some everclear, and work it up with CaO followed by reflux/distillation from Mg turnings and iodine.

[Edited on 20-5-2016 by UC235]

hissingnoise - 21-5-2016 at 00:46

Ebay ethanol


Corrosive Joeseph - 21-5-2016 at 07:46

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I presume this is denatured but couldn't find an MSDS for it...................

Any idea what the denaturants are.................. Methanol....................?

hissingnoise - 21-5-2016 at 09:00

It's supposedly 97% pure and only contains bitterent – to stop people converting to alcohol.


careysub - 21-5-2016 at 17:20

Looking at "fireplace ethanol" (a product category I did not know existed until just now) on US eBay, and Googling for fireplace and "bio ethanol" MSDS it looks like all the brands are marked E100, and claim to be "pure denatured alcohol" and the MSDS's generally indicated ethanol >90%, IPA 5-9%, and Denatonium <1%, and some "proprietary ingredient" < 10%. Exposure limits listed for this "trade secret" ingredient suggest that it is safer than ethanol.

It appears to be anhydrous. As a fuel, it is a lot cheaper than perfumery ethanol (though the perfumery ethanol has a definite composition, and is nearly all ethanol).

Might be good for a lot of uses, if some IPA and Denatonium are not a problem (that "proprietary ingredient" is a wild card though).