Fyndium
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Quality assessment of a fuel anti-freeze product? (EtOH&IPA)
I was looking into an OTC, cheap source for ethanol, for multitude of purposes from reaction solvent to washing solvent to recrystallization that IPA
would also work. Pure, 99.9% IPA is widely available, but the cost is prohibitively high.
However, all concentrated ethanol products are either solutions of various other impurities, for example wiper fluids, stove fuels, etc, which will
need at least one distillation to extract properly pure ethanol, still containing most of the denaturants and water. Ethanol products that are
intended to be used as a solvent with simple denaturing are available, but command a great price tag. The denaturants, usually MEK and IPA, do not
matter, and if were, MEK is easy to remove by adding equal amount of NaOH and distilling the ethanol off. Being able to use the product OTC as is with
100% yield would be a huge benefit, as distilling simple solvents that end up being discarded due to the difficulty separating them from water is a
waste of limited time.
I stumbled upon a product that contains undetermined amount of IPA and ethanol. The product was originally pure IPA, regarded as pure enough for
various electronics and other artisan hobbyists to praise it, but apparently they started cutting the product with ethanol during recent years, hence
it has fallen out of popularity.
Now, the product is intended as a fuel anti-freeze, so should we expect it to sustain a very low water content?
Also, generally, do fuel ethanol products (no gasoline-related but only ethanol stoves, etc) need to be anhydrous in order to function in desired
matter? Some products I read about actually suggest adding a little bit of water into the ethanol if it generates soot, so I presume that 95% ethanol
would be well suitable as a fuel? What also stuck to my eye was that the same manufacturer's fuel ethanol is 10% more expensive than car fluid, and it
also contains about that 10% amount of other, non-ethanol based additives. Likely coincidence, though, just a thought.
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horuse10
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I have always prefer acetone as a cleaning solvent. It distil well with low amounts lost.
Why not Try fermentation if you need pure éthanol ?
I don’t know your country but here ethanol is sold as a kind of « cheminey » fuel. For extraction and cleaning it’s largely sufficient.
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Fyndium
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Acetone is suitable for instances where the stuff is not acetone soluble. Ether would be even better, but in this case it doesn't work. 
Decorative fireplace and stove ethanol seems to be available as well. MSDS states it contains about 70% of ethanol, 20% of IPA and 5% MEK, balance
water. It costs about as much as the fuel additive, but the decorative stuff is three times more expensive.
You likely know how laborious it is to ferment ethanol and to distill it to azeotrope, not even speaking of making it anhydrous?
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Amos
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Isopropanol is pretty easy to purify from 70% or 91% if you do it on a pretty large scale. Add table salt directly to the container, shake it
vigorously until you can see a second layer separate out, remove the aqueous layer, do the same thing again to the organic layer using sodium
hydroxide, remove the aqueous layer, then dry over anhydrous magnesium or sodium sulfate and distill.
If you'd like anhydrous ethanol, I know it's not OTC but you should look into perfumery grade ethanol online. Some products are 190 proof but the
grade I'm talking about contains no water and only tiny amounts of denatonium benzoate and tert-butyl alcohol, and is relatively cheap because it
avoids alcohol taxation.
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