Fantasma4500
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accidentally purified ethanol?
i tried to make NaClO3 from KClO3, i cant remember how, but i found out that NaClO3 was the only thing in the mixup powder i had formed soluble in
ethanol
so i used 200 mL ethanol
its denaturated tho, so it contains something unknown
i thought 200 mL in my apartment would be quite some flammable liquid in the air, so i destilled it..
i got 70 mL out of 200 mL, bad setup but it worked somewhat
its actually 93% ethanol from start, dont know if the poisonous stuff making sure you dont wanna drink it is MEK (ive read that its used for not
making it drinkable)
but.. whats confusing me abit here..
a guy i know says he thinks it tastes still abit like the poisonous stuff is in, pure ethanol doesnt taste very well anyways
but compared to the original, it doesnt taste bad at all.. the taste is like NH4OH (bad idea i know) its cold'ish, and then it just vapourisez.. there
is no bad taste remaining, a tiny bit of the original ethanol can be tasted several hours after..
i found some weird brownish stuff leftover when i boiled the last ethanol off.. could it be that they only had impurities in that can just be boiled
off??? and ..
is there any possible way that i could accurately test for impurities others than tiny amounts of water, and ofcourse ethanol itself..?
as said before i only got 70 mL from 200 mL..
so possibly the first 130 mL just went up in the air.. if this was MEK i believe i distilled that off, and also the solid in the liquid?
just seems strange to me that i have made pure ethanol this easily.. please suggest ways to test for purity etc.
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neptunium
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i cant recall where and when but i heard denaturated ethanol was mixed with Methanol which forms an azeotrope that cannot be seperated by distillation
alone.
you are taking a serious risk with your health if you try to drink even minute amount of CH3OH..
beside, denaturated ethanol is made industrialy with the only goal of making an industrial solvent . the impurities you found could be from the
industrial process involved in making the stuff...(rust from pipes and valves, bits of seal and grease from pumps and lid etc..)
if you want to obtain pure ethanol why not dry the distillate from vodka or everclear? much less toxic!
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Fantasma4500
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Quote: Originally posted by neptunium  | i cant recall where and when but i heard denaturated ethanol was mixed with Methanol which forms an azeotrope that cannot be seperated by distillation
alone.
you are taking a serious risk with your health if you try to drink even minute amount of CH3OH..
beside, denaturated ethanol is made industrialy with the only goal of making an industrial solvent . the impurities you found could be from the
industrial process involved in making the stuff...(rust from pipes and valves, bits of seal and grease from pumps and lid etc..)
if you want to obtain pure ethanol why not dry the distillate from vodka or everclear? much less toxic! |
well i know 10 mL of methanol will make you go blind, i have no clue on how it tastes tho, i dont drink myself, dont know why i want pure ethanol
actually??
but methanol seems like something somewhat simple to add to it as its quite toxic..
the taste of a tiny bit without destillation is some weird very sour taste that lasts for many hours.. think ill need to taste an tiny amount of
methanol to define if there is methanol in it..
but methanol can be oxidized into formaldehyde catalysed by silver i know, so possibly i could seperate it by that way
im quite sure that formaldehyde would have very different properties than methanol so it should be easier to seperate, but i doubt that theres grease
and such stuff in it, its clear white, so i believe they destilled it until it was about 90% concentration and added some other pure chemical somewhat
toxic.. but again they might be using more than one kind of toxic chemical in it, but the distilled didnt taste worse than vodka to me..
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Fantasma4500
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'' The main additive has traditionally been 10% methanol, giving rise to the term "methylated spirits". Other typical additives include isopropyl
alcohol, acetone, methyl ethyl ketone, methyl isobutyl ketone, and denatonium.[1]''
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol
seems that there might be a chance they would have added more than just 1 and even more than 2 things to it (low high and medium boiling point, solid
etc)
perhaps i would need to test it for every thing, on the original and see if there would be some of the same in my distilled version..
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neptunium
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methanol is not bad tasting (not better or worse) than ethanol. quite a few accident happened throughout history and the people who drinked it never
supected a thing.
there might be as you said, some MEK in it as well as methanol .
the best way to test it (not taste ) would be with a HPLC or a raman spectrometer.
Formaldehyde is quite toxic as well but can be easily identify if concentrated enough.
as for drinking any of this i stick to Jack Daniels!
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neptunium
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if you are trying to make NaClO3 why not just boil some bleach?
and recrystalize to separate the chloride?
are you starting with the potassium salt?
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AndersHoveland
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Mixtures of alcohol with water can separate out into two layers if salt is added. The top layer contains a higher percentage of alcohol. It is called
"salting out" the alcohol.
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=17034
[Edited on 3-3-2013 by AndersHoveland]
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neptunium
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great! but thats not what he is asking about Anders...
[Edited on 3-3-2013 by neptunium]
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Fantasma4500
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haha.. no.. but its quite interesting, tho, to increase the density to get more pure ethanol.. didnt think it was possible to break the bonds (is it
called that? sorry im not that wise on the specific names on these things) with use of that simple things..
i will need to look into what those things are.. thought methanol had a special taste as its toxic? methanol is oxidized into formaldehyde inside your
body which is .. well not completely a natural reaction but, it does happen if you ingest aspartame containing stuff like soda, sadly.
the HPLC seems pretty pricey tbh 
but is the only way to detect small quanities of impurities to use non-chemical things? if i could somehow break the methanol or MEK into CO2 or some
other gas then i should be able to see the bubbles in solution...
wait a second..
in school we made different esters.. i used satisalic acid and methanol, produced a strong smell of .. rum / some strange gum flavour.. i need to get
abit of satisalic acid then i should be able to see if theres methanol in it..
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Fantasma4500
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might have found an even better solution already..
6 CH3OH + Al2O3 → 2 Al(OCH3)3 + 3 H2O
The resulting methoxide salts are soluble in methanol, resulting in a clean aluminium surface, which is readily oxidized by dissolved oxygen. Also,
the methanol can act as an oxidizer:
6 CH3OH + 2 Al → 2 Al(OCH3)3 + 3 H2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol
aluminium oxide should be quite easy to get a hold of, and something about this tells me that it isnt the average properties of alcohols, thereby
ethanol shouldnt act the same way..
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Fantasma4500
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sorry if im spamming, the same effect as anders described should be possible to perform with methanol-ethanol solutions aswell, due to ethanol can
dissolve 0.65g NaCl and methanol can dissolve 14g
its like its getting easier and easier the more i look into its properties..
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