Talk:Ethanol/Archive 1

Archive 1

Drug information

Perhaps the drug information template should be added, as ethanol is certainly of both chemical and clinical interest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.161.230.10 (talk) 20:29, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Ethanol Infrared Spectra

Hello my name is Ladislaz , yesterday I just add a picture of Ethanol Infrared spectra. I have to thank to the guy who move it to Testing, there is much better and have a purpose. If you guys think that tt would be a good idea put some texts on the spectrum to clarify where the bands are please let me know. 9 September 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ladislaz (talk • contribs) 14:32, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

NFPA 704

It should be changed to 0-3-0, as per this picture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nalgene_bottles.jpg 72.221.127.207 (talk) 01:55, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I think that this should be 0-4-0 as flash point is below 23deg C --195.217.54.227 (talk) 14:48, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

According to NFPA resources, the diamond should contain a 1 in the blue sector, a 3 in the red sector, and a 0 in the yellow sector. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.73.174.54 (talk) 16:28, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

The health rating is "2" (blue section) per http://www.nfpa.org/Assets/files/AboutTheCodes/704/CLA-AAA_ROPminutes_01-10.pdf and MSDS at http://msds.lyondell.com:50100/ehswww/lyondell/e/result/report.jsp?P_LANGU=E&P_SYS=2&P_SSN=10965&P_REP=00000000000000000004&P_RES=5305

Sandcherry (talk) 03:41, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

The NFPA is being ridiculous then. Methanol kills with as little as 10ml ingestion, can blind through skin absorption, and gets a '1', while ethanol gets a '2'. Snakeburger (talk) 23:01, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps so, but since the article references NFPA, it must use the current NFPA ratings. The methanol health rating was referred to the technical committee so it may be changed. Sandcherry (talk) 00:31, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Deleted Paragraph

i Deleted this paragraph from the controversy section. It does not talk specificlly about ethanol it just seems to give miscellaneous optimism about the future necessity for biofuels and nothing about the "ethanol controversy" which is the stated theme of the section...

A February 7, 2008 Renewable Fuels Association news release quoted RFA President Bob Dinneen, saying, "Understanding the land use changes occurring around the globe is important to developing strategies to combat the advance of climate change. However, like previous studies, those published in Science today fail to put the issue in context. Assigning the blame for rainforest deforestation and grassland conversion to agriculture production solely to the renewable fuels industry ignores key factors that play a greater role. The continued growth of the global population, surging global demand for food from expanding middle classes in China and India, and continued expansion of development and urban sprawl are all factors contributing to the increased demand for arable acres. In addition, without biofuels and some increase in fuel economy, more and more petroleum will be required to meet the increasingly ravenous demand for liquid fuels around the world. As the ‘easy’ sources of oil decline, development of exotic resources, like tar sands in Canada, are being pursued. Tar sands, by comparison, release some 300 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than traditional petroleum recovery. It is very questionable that biofuels are the silver bullet to the energy or environmental challenges our planet faces. According to the Renewable Fuels Association, by adopting the use of biofuels today and encouraging the development of next generation technologies for the future, the road can be paved for the future fuels and technologies to come; the alternative is to continue to exploit increasingly costlier fossil fuels for which the environmental price tag will be great" according to the Renewable Fuels Association. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.235.90.2 (talk) 08:18, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Redirects

apparently, all alcohol related pages have been redirected to ethanol, including methyl and isopropyl alcohol. They are clearly NOT ethanol and should be redirected to their own respective pages and NOT here. This might misinform people with little knowledge of chemistry to thinking that all alcohol is "ethanol".75.68.228.120 (talk) 22:23, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

On the same note as above, "ethylene alcohol" redirects here but should go to "ethylene glycol" --- since I don't know how, if any of my betters see this, please fix. --Dhall27 (talk) 01:28, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Absolute Ethanol

Under Absolute Ethanol:

"Absolute ethanol is often denatured by adding watermelon juice, which in fact, is further distilled to make Midori, a drink favored by the Japanese."

I think this should be omitted.. either that, or leave it as "Absolute ethanol is often denatured by adding watermelon juice, which in fact, is further distilled to make Midori." without "a drink favored by the Japanese."--j4m3sb0nd 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Plus adding a potable substance to absolute ethanol would count as dilution rather than denaturation in most reckonings - certainly under UK Law denaturation should render the alcohol non-potable. 62.196.17.197 (talk) 16:48, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

How does ethanol denature proteins and lipids?

Would it destroy hemolymph? Chiss Boy 00:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Metabolism

This was the first paper that shows exercise has no effect on rate of metabolism - might be worth adding:Barnes EW, Cooke NJ, King AJ, Passmore R. "Observations on the metabolism of alcohol in man." Br J Nutr. 1965;19(4):485-9. User:DNADiver —Preceding comment was added at 16:10, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

questions about industrial dest.

The article states that addition of benzene to ethanol is a common industrial way to produce ethanol absolute. And later it says, that other methods (glycerol, CaO, etc etc ) are quite common. This strikes me as weird. I don't know which procedure is more common at the moment, however, I contend that the 3 ppm benzene in EtOH would not harm a fly, even in a lifetime of drinking (yes, subjective... sorry) Sikkema 21:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

See revision. Sandcherry (talk) 01:55, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

As a Fuel, serious NPOV issues

The article previously stated that 'production of ethanol is "easy" (through fermentation of sugar via sugarcane) and is environmentally benign. This was changed for NPOV and since the production of pure sugar is one of the most detrimental things people can do aside from pumping flurocarbons into the air. As a fuel we're essentially doing both of these, but you don't see me stating this in the article. However those who go about stating things are environmentally begnign without knowledge of what they are in fault due to wrong information and NPOV.

I agree: A more specific thermodynamic analysis, as seen often in literature (don't have the refs) shows that ethanol as "biofuel" is by far not as efficient and "green" as widely thought. Something MUCH more efficient is the installation of solar cells. Sikkema 21:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the sugar doesn't need to be purified for fermentation to work, you just need to squeeze the liquid out of the plant material.

I think the line about sugar cane ethanol being carbon sequestering is misleading and unsupported by the citation. maybe "creates less carbon emission than gasoline or ethanol derived from corn" is better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.248.128.126 (talk) 15:51, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Brewing

changed the level of alcohol the strongest yeasts can survive from around 20 to 25%, as Samuel Adams has recently come to market with a non-distilled 50 proof beer using a super yeast they have been developing for decades.

I've so far been unable to find the source of this information. Is there something that can be cited? Nahaj 21:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if 25% is indeed achievable, but [2] claims 17%, and [3] claims 18% to 20%. Anthony 14:50, 26 Oct 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anthonydgr (talk • contribs)

Name

Why is the name of the article Ethyl alchohol and not ethanol. Ethanol seems to be the name consequently used in the rest of the articleFornadan 06:59, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• I support a move to article title ethanol. Physchim62 20:49, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

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Mixing the use of flammable and inflammable with apparently the same meaning ("it can burn") is confusing. Yet I'm not sure what the better word is. Anyone?

—Herbee 2004-02-11

Inflammable means flammable?? What a country!

—Dr. Nick Riviera 2004-10-22

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"and that the economic irrationality of using grain-produced ethanol to replace petroleum can be seen from the fact that almost all industrial ethanol is produced from petroleum feedstocks" -- removed this because I don't understand the illogic -- Marj Tiefert 17:11 Aug 6, 2002 (PDT)

Uhm it makes sense, if indusrial grade alcohol is made from petroleum because its cheaper than grain why would you want to replace petroleum with grain-alcohol?

I have been annoyed by advertizments on Public Radio's News Hour by Arthur Danial Midland that imply that ethanol is their exclusive product made from corn. Some writers have expressed concern that ethanol as an additive to gasoline might be poisin if spilled into the ground water like the synthetic MTB. [[email protected]]

Perhaps because petroleum is a finite resource and also prices are volatile? user:sjc

I wasn't arguing with the sentence, i was just reiterating it because marj found it illogical. It actually makes sense though, and that was what i was trying to say. It IS economically irrational to replace petroleum with ethanol when you consider the most cost-efficient way of producing ethanol is form petroleum feedstocksLightning 14:28 Oct 14, 2002 (UTC)

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Something seems to be missing at the end of this sentence: "Some people, especially in East Asia, have a mutation in their alcohol dehydrogenase gene and process alcohol "

Can anyone fill in the blank? It looks like that line was added by AxelBoldt on 16 Mar 2003. -- Arteitle 10:25 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Well, there you go. It's not exactly a continuation of the sentence, but it's something Dysprosia 10:32 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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"Most alcoholic beverages are not useful to replenish the body's fluids, since they cause the body to lose more fluids as urine than are taken in by the beverage."
What is 'most'? Historically in Europe, alcoholic beverages were the only safe things to drink, and many/most? people drank only/majorly? beers & wines for their liquid intake. How does that compare to this statement?
~ender 2003-08-30 20:54:MST

I'm not certain what you're referring to. I find it unlikely that alcoholic beverages were ever the major part of a person hydration, and it seems useless. Alcohol, in any form, is diuretic. I suppose if it was watered down enough, it would be possible to drink more water than you would lose in urinating, but this wouldn't address the problem of water being unsafe to drink, except inasmuch as alcohol kills bacteria. AFAIK, the word most is incorrect, since all alcohol is diuretic. Tuf-Kat

I remember reading somewhere that letting substances ferment was one way to make them safe to drink. In Asia however they used to boil liquid (teas etc.) to kill bacteria etc., that was why they're more likely to have less genetic alcohol tolerance, because they didn't need to drink alcohol.

(I don't know if it's true though.) Tristanb 06:05, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Historicaly yes. Beer was a method of treating water by fermation to make it transportable and storable. However this was what would be later called 'Small Beer', with a fractionaly low alcahol content, and is a historical use only. Any information to reflect this would be better suited to articles specificaly about beer. Alcaholic drinks, and beer as we commonly know it now is are dehydrating. (Hangovers are not an direct effect of the ethanol, but of the dehydration. Maybe this should be mentioned?). --Barberio 04:47, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, I was reading "Structures of Everyday Life" (a great book btw), and it talked about beers and things. Beers used to be so common that they dcouldn't even be bought for a coin, you used up tokens for each beer, which would eventually equal the smallest coin in circulation. I was also reading somewhere that water was not a popular drink, until the Puritans got to New England, as most water sources were polluted. Beer can be 3% alcohol by volume, so I'm assuming that 30-1 ratio of water to alcohol might be enough to give you a net gain in retaining water. But, like I said, I'm interested in more information before I change the article.

~ender 2003-08-30 23:46:MST

This is going to be difficult to pin down. There are two different things being compared: [1] The concentration of alcohol in a beverage that would retard microbial growth, and [2] The concentration of alcohol in blood that suppresses anti-diuretic hormone release (most likely 0.07 - 0.09). But the concentration of alcohol in a beverage and blood alcohol level is not a simple correspondance, and depends on body weight, speed of ingestion, and many other factors. It is probably possible to drink only alcoholic beverages, never exceed a blood alcohol level of 0.6, and yet manage to take in enough fluid to supply metabolic needs. The question really is what is the strength of the evidence supporting the assertion that alcoholic beverages were the only fluid drunk by most Europeans (at any given period). Not terribly strong, I would think. It's also quite possible that something other than the alcohol concentration in the fermented beverages made them safe to drink. -- Someone else 06:56, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Maybe it's not the alcohol concentration, but the fact that fermentation allows harmless yeasts, (and bacteria) to overtake and outbreed any cholera bugs.

Apparently, cheap beer in Europe used to be very dilute: it led to electrolyte depletion if you drank it to cool you off while stoking coal fires. (source: a lecturer many years ago) Tristanb

How about: It is difficult to replenish the body's fluids using only alcoholic beverages because alcohol is a diuretic, and in the more potent drinks, causes the body to lose more water than is contained in the beverage.

~ender 2003-08-31 00:32:MST

With a bit of a change, I thin: it's not the potency (i.e., concentration) of the drink that matters, it's the dose of alcohol that's consumed in a given time period. (of course, high "potency" may make this more likely, but that's not what we said before). -- Someone else 17:37, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)

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I think some people might dispute the claim that pure ethanol "has a pleasant odor" (whether reminiscent of whiskey or not). -Delirium 07:19, Aug 31, 2003 (UTC)

Just curious... If not from ethanol, how did you become delirious? Herbee

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Perhaps the use of ethanol as a car fuel deserves it own page? --Jorge Stolfi

See alcohol fuel - Centrx 16:18, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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"A solution of 70-85% of ethanol is commonly used as a disinfectant..."

I see this figure given quite often, but unfortunately no explaination is given to why alcohol's most effective at such concentration. This is contrary to most disinfectants, which are more effective at higher concentrations; usually they are diluted because they are too toxic at higher concentrations.

Note that the standard drugstore disinfectant alcohol is 70% Isopropyl alcohol, *not* 70% ethanol. (And the Rubbing alcohol article discusses the issue of why 70%.) Nahaj 21:15, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Hopefully someone knowlegable can answer this, if just to satisfy my personal curiosity. At my local drug stores, isopropyl alcohol are often sold in at least two different concentrations: ~70% and ~90%. Some even offer three: ~70%, ~80%, and ~90%. Somehow I feel this is a marketing ploy... - Anonymous

My guess would be that although Ethyl Alcohol is more effective at higher concentrations as a disenfectant, from personal experience, alcohol stings much more at 90% than 70%. Firestorm 01:11, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

You are wrong, for optimal effects there has to be water in the alcohol, 75% (by weight, not by volume!) is usually used. Cacycle 10:34, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Strong claim, where are the supporting facts? (I.E. where is your information coming from?) Nahaj 21:15, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm new to the conversation, and I see that this was posted in 2006, but alcohol is believed to denature proteins and disrupt lipids of micro organisms (though the exact mechanism is unknown), to do this it requires the water to stabilize the reaction (as a hydrogen donor or electron acceptor or something I can't remember and can't find a good source right now). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.99.22.94 (talk) 07:03, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

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Anyway, for an experiment in my chemistry class, we mixed ethanol and water inside a closed system (a glass tube corked at both ends). Eventually, a bubble formed in the solution, apparrently either creating a gas or losing volume. I know that no reaction occurred, so can anyone help with this problem? Most likely the water molecules are fitting inside the ethanol molecules, reducing the volume and releasing bubbles, but can anyone confirm this? Firestorm 01:11, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

The bubbles are from liberation of dissolved air. It is the same effect if you mix soda water and it starts bubbling (CO2 in this case). Cacycle 10:34, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

From basic chemistry, intermolecular forces between ethanol molecules come about largely via polar intereactions with the OH group present. Water, which is able to form hydrogen bonds (which are stronger than dipole-dipole bonds), forms stronger interactions with ethanol molecules than ethanol molecules can form with themselves. This results in the observed volume contraction, however I am unsure of the explanation for the formation of bubbles. It may be due to displacement of dissolved oxygen present in the water as a result of volume contraction. As this is from memory from first year chemistry, feel free to correct any errors I have made - Someone

Seems correct to me, the H-bonds are where its at. The ethanol displaces the dissolved air.

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It must also be noted that ethanol acts as an amphiphilic compound: not only is ethanol completely miscible in water, in gasoline as well. Ethanol is not nearly as volatile as gasoline and gives off no visible smoke or soot like the latter.

Hi all. I just followed the link for Solubility in Water = Fully miscible and the Miscibility page says ethanol is either miscible or immiscible, not fully or partially miscible. So I am not a chemist and maybe this is common use but there you have a reader's thought for this fine Friday. -Dave King

Formula

OK, now the formula in the box have changed repeatedly between C₂H₆O and C₂H₅OH. It should really not be impossible to find a final solution to this. I understand that C2H60 is the "correct" scientific formula, but the vast majority who read this page will not be chemists and C2H5OH is the most well known variant and is used in the main text. If C2H6O is the variant to be used in the box, then the reason for this should be commented in the article or it will just continue to confuse readers Fornadan 22:29, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is Chemical talk. Meaning the infromation here has to be the Standart one. Not the most commonly used one, which could be liked or explained instead. NaeRey

As i understand it, the molecular and empirical formulae are C2H60, and the structural formula is CH3CH2OH. Perhaps this should be noted in the opening paragraph. (as a new wiki member i do not know how to do this, as i cant see an edit button lol) motorbyclist

I think that the official formula is C₂H₅OH as it is noted in the Glencoe Science Interactions 3 in Chapter 10, section 2, page 315. This is the science standard from what I have found and asked my science teacher. I think that this is what should be listed on Wikipedia. Dennin

The formula C2H5OH should be used as the majority of people using this may be using it for school work. The (OH) shows it is an alcohol so its very important! Burton0123

ethanol more expensive than petrol

ethanol is not derived from oil. that being so a lot countries have been considering the idea of either adding or replacing gasoline with ethanol in order to decrease the amount of oil they need to produce fuels. - 210.213.230.69 03:15, 22 April 2005

This is a seperate topic under Ethanol as a fuel, altered the uses section to link there. --Barberio 23:10, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Both C2H60 and C2H5OH are in fact correct. Personally, and in the lab, C2H5OH is more often used simply because it is more precise. However, it seems like it makes little difference to me. -SylvanScientist

Could we leave editing this kind of information to chemist only please. So we don't get this kind of crap in wiki? Thank you!!

Flash Point

That the Flash point is less than room temperature just doesn't sound plausible. Lee S. Svoboda 00:29, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Look up flash point. You'll see that the flash point is the temperature that vapors will burn in air. Note that this is different than the autoignition temperature which is much higher. ~K 04:31, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

My mistake. Thanks.

Lee S. Svoboda 22:13, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Wouldn't the flashpoint be whatever the room temperature is if it catches in the room? e.g. 18 degrees?

Strictly speaking, the flash point is the temperature at which there is enough vapor above the liquid to allow burning to be sustained. Below the flash point (17 C) you could hold a match to pure ethanol and it would not burn. Above 17 C it will burn. Walkerma 06:25, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

SR 03/03/06 The definition of flash point is: the temperature at which enough vapour will be released from the source to cause a momentary flash when a flame is applied. It's got nothing to do with the temperature at which it burns or any other of the nonsense above. I also beg to differ about the match. If you put a match into ethanol its possible to raise the temperature of that small area of the liquid to a point above the flash point which will allow the vapour to ignite and burn, when it will spread over the rest of the liquid. But if you threw a match into a beaker of it I'd agree that it'd probably just go out.

Note also that vapors may be present, but not in sufficent concentrations to actually catch fire. After all, the 'mixture' must be the correct one. Too thick and there isn't enough oxygen. Too thin, and there is not enough fuel.

Enterprisetoday 10:38, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I've noticed that this page refers to ethanols flash point as being 17 C, yet these pages show it to be 13 C

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:BZ1Y06C5LkIJ:www.biology.ualberta.ca/facilities/safety/index.php%3FPage%3D705+ethanol+flash+point&hl=en 3rd paragraph

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel

under topic Other alcohols: butanol and propanol

The International Chemical Safety Card also cites the flash point as 13°C, so lets go with that (at least for pure ethanol, the flash point of ethanol– water mixtures is significantly higher). Physchim62 (talk) 12:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

There is still an inconsistency with the flash point values in this article. The Hazards inset lists 9°C, while the Flammability section says pure the flash point of pure ethanol is 16.6°C. I'm certainly not enough of an authority to suggest the correct value(s) - hoping someone can fix this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.210.123.85 (talk) 16:11, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

I am new to this Talk feature, and don't know how to correct the original Flash Point entry. I notice that the Flash Point table is based on Ethanol ABV, which means % Alcohol By Volume. But the reference 76 that is the source for the table, Engineeringtoolbox.com, shows Flash point in % by weight (i.e. gms alcohol/gms solution). This is a big difference for an alcohol. The mention of wine at 12.5 % ethanol is obviously supposed to be ABV, which is the standard unit used for alcoholic drinks. P A Twomey (talk) 16:44, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Industrial ethanol production

Change statement. My understanding of the situation is that even with recent price hikes, most industrial ethanol is still made from petroleum.

Here are some stats.....

http://www.the-innovation-group.com/ChemProfiles/Ethanol.htm

Errors ID'd by Nature, to correct

The results of what exactly Nature suggested should be corrected is out... italicize each bullet point once you make the correction. -- user:zanimum

• Para 6: It is said of the traces of benzene in purified alcohol that ‘consumption by humans lead to distinctive liver damage’. Such industrial alcohol is never drunk by humans and I think the author is confusing this with cirrhosis of the liver caused by excessive alcohol consumption over many years.
• Para 9: the name of the ‘unpleasant’ agent is denatonium benzoate, better known as Bitrex.
• Page 10: the term antifreeze is generally used for ethylene glycol not ethanol. Ethanol has a low melting point but this is not given.
• Para 12: Ethanol is not commonly used as a disinfectant, although it has disinfectant properties.
• Para 26*: Seems rather jumbled, mixing alcoholism, cirrhosis of the liver, and unproven claims that alcohol consumption is linked to various forms of cancer.

I started formulating responses to the reviewer's points here: Wikipedia:External peer review/Nature December 2005/Errors#Ethanol. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 23:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Disputed

The Nature review of this article objected to the following statement:

A solution of 70% of ethanol is commonly used as a disinfectant.

The reviewer wrote:

"Para 12: Ethanol is not commonly used as a disinfectant, although it has disinfectant properties."

I guess it depends on what one considers common: I'm guesssing that in household first-aid use ethanol and propanol are fairly common. Can anyone clarify? --MarkSweep (call me collect) 22:58, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes its very common in the UK, in alcohol wipes and in hand gels (which are used widely in hospitals to control infection spread). So the 70% bit is a bit wrong, but it's certainly used as a disinfectant. Editing to reflect that. Dan100 (Talk) 10:53, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Now I've read the text I see where the reviewer is coming from: again, in the UK, solns of ethanol are not used as a disinfectant. So I've removed that bit for the time being. The article then goes on to mention wipes and rubs. Dan100 (Talk) 10:58, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I have come across 70% ethanol used as a disinfectant: as a spray-down treatment for benchtops in a microbiological laboratory. I am not familiar with any consumer disinfectant that is simply an ethanol solution. Shimmin 12:34, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Must say that when I was a lab tech last year we used it too, but I'd hardly say that made it "common". Worth mentioning in the article though. Dan100 (Talk) 14:05, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Ethanol is used as a disinfectant for more than just countertops. Biological research laboratories use it as a spray down to tools and gloves and equipment before begininng any tissue culture work. 70% is a standard for research laboratories, although I have heard that solutions containing between 60-85% EtOH will work. Due to polar/non polar interactions, ethanol is a lipid solvent. It also denatures proteins. 95% ethanol is not used as a disenfectant (dehydration as opposed to disinfectant, or antiseptic).

Jawz 02:26, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I guess it depend greatly on which country you're from. 10 years ago, it was extremly common in France household first-aid(90%, by the way. 70% is not a magic figures ;-) ) and I guess it still a very common domestic disinfectant in many "poor" country

That's right, and it's still true today: when you ask for alcohol in a pharmacy, what you get is 90% of ethanol, and it is indeed used as a disinfectant. Some other countries seem to more commonly use 70% isopropyl alcohol for that purpose. Homer Jay 14:18, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I only just came across this recently, sorry, it's months after the discussion:

• Actually the 70% figure is a sort-of magic number, although need not be adhered to exactly. It arises because many studies, dating back to at least the nineteenth century, show that 70% concentration is more effective than absolute alcohol as well as being cheaper. I don't know if the reason has been proved but it it is widely believed to be because it is almost as effective per unit time but takes much longer to evaporate.
• There are many widely used household disinfectants based on ethanol, for example see http://www.cranews.com/additional_study/1996/96-11/disinfect/distab.htm#Alcohol for a list of nearly two dozen sold in various countries around the world (although a minority also incorporate propanol).
• And they aren't exotic or rarely used; the product from that table, called Glen 20 in Australia, was until recently was the top selling household disinfectant aerosol in this country. (It recently got bumped into number 2 spot). It consists of 68% ethanol and nothing else but denatured water and perfumes. The exact same product is also sold in Canada and the UK by the same parent company, but under a different name (Lysol spray in Canada, sorry I don't recall the UK name off the top of my head).

To put it bluntly, the Nature reviewer's claim (that "Ethanol is not commonly used as a disinfectant") is complete balderdash. -- Securiger 07:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Anti-freeze?

I've removed the following: "Ethanol is also used in antifreeze products for its low freezing point.", although Mark Sweep had added {{fact}}. AFAIK, ethanol is not used in antifreeze products. Dan100 (Talk) 10:38, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

• No, antifreeze (at least in Europe) is usually ethylene glycol. Physchim62 (talk) 14:02, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
• "Ethylene glycol is the most widely used automotive cooling-system antifreeze, although methanol, ethanol, isopropyl alcohol, and propylene glycol are also used." [4]. So though we're right that ethanol is used in antifreeze, I'm not sure it needs to be mentioned, as it is not a terribly important fact...that is, merely including it might be overemphasis. - Nunh-huh 00:40, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• There are other antifreezes other than that found in automobile radiators. There are antfreezes for windshield washing fluid for use in masonry (bricks can be laid in colder tempuratures) and other uses.

While this is true, the most common form of anti-freeze, the one the average person would think of, is the cooling of a car, and thus of ethylene glycol.

Ethanol couldn't be used as an anti freeze because when the motor will be hot enough , it will boil at a temperature lower than water, thus it is impractical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.201.105.168 (talk) 01:07, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

calories

There is no mention of the number of calories per serving. Looking around the web, I find Vodka at 220kcal/100ml at 40%ABV, which is to say ethanol would be 5.55kcal/ml. Does that sound right? Can someone find a better source? —BenFrantzDale 04:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It's 7.1kcal/g [5]. also /ml is incorrect as Volume is a Vector. NaeRey

I didn't find that page when I searched. Given the listed density of ethanol, though, 7.1 kcal/g implies 5.60 kcal/ml, which is essentially exactly what I found, so at least it agrees. As for “/ml” being a vector, I don't understand what you mean. —BenFrantzDale 00:18, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Toxicology

A reference is needed concerning the use of benzene as an entrainer during purification of ethanol above 96%. Patty's Toxicology, 5th Ed. Vol. 4., Bingham, E., Cohrssen, B., and Powell, C.H. eds. New York: John Willey & Sons, Inc., pp. 235-252, 2001 The effects of benezene by itself on health do not seem to be hepatic in nature. Perhaps benzene with ethanol has a pronounced hepatic effect.

I started a new page apart from Ethanol specifically regarding the metabolism of Ethanol in humans. It is listed at Ethanol Metabolism. The article contains substantially more information than what is presented on this page, including some molecular genetics. I did not, however, include toxicology on my sight. I would certianly be open tot he idea of incorporating my article into this page if the editors thougt that the best course of action. ATB—Preceding unsigned comment added by Hoyabird8 (talk • contribs)

I would be in favour of moving this section to your article, giving it a {{main}} here, with a bit of explanation. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:02, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Ethanol

What other FOODS or food products is ethanol found in - -AND what foods would break down to ethanol in your system. I recently had an employment drug screening where they said I had "biomarkers for ETg" or alcohol consumption in my screen. I do not imbibe and am wondering if something I ate, drank or absorbed would be responsible for the results?

Highly likely, yes. More or less anything with sugars and yeast could produce something that would cause such a biomarker, without there being any alcohol involved. For instance, there is a story, hard to tell if it is true, but still a possibility, of a man in Norway who many years ago had a reaction in a police-administered blood-test. Supposedly, it came to be due to him having been at a birthday party and there eaten all sorts of breads. DannyBoy2k 17:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Amphipatic Nature

I have a question, is ethanol amphipatic?

Is that a synonym for amphiphilic? If so, yes it is to a degree, but its hydrophilic nature is much stronger than its hydrophobic nature. For example you can dissolve many oils in ethanol, but if you add it to water, the ethanol almost completely dissolves into the water and leaves the oil as an unstable, very fine dispersion instead of the stabilised colloid you would expect for an amphiphilic solvent. -- Securiger 07:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Vinegar

Can we get the chemical reaction for the creation of vinegar? I know it says "prepared by the action of Acetobacter bacteria on ethanol solutions," but it would be nice to know what the specific reaction is.

CH₃CH₂OH + O₂ → CH₃COOH + H₂O

The reaction for metabolizing ethanol in the human body is very similar, except that the product is acetyl-CoA rather than acetic acid. Physchim62 (talk) 04:12, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes in fact it is very easy to do so. This is a simple oxidation reaction in organic chemistry. Even really weak agents such as Ag(NH₃)₃⁺ will do that. That is the basis of the "silver mirror" test. LoyalSoldier (talk) 20:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Melting Point and Boiling Point Edits

I have reverted edits by User:71.162.62.189 (see [6] and [7]) regarding the melting point and boiling point of ethanol, as they did not provide an explanation or source for the new numbers (about 3 K lower than previous numbers) and the previous numbers (MP = 158.8 K and BP = 351.6 K) had much better agreement with the values reported by the NIST Chemistry WebBook (see [8]) of MP = 158.8±0.7 K and BP = 351.5±0.2 K. Note that I do not know the source of the previous numbers for this article. If there is reasonable evidence that the melting point and boiling point are different than the values reported in this article (158.8 K and 351.6 K), feel free to change (with explanation).--GregRM 21:54, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Production by distillation

On The Amazing Race, some contestants made ethanol just by distilling sugar cane juice. (The Amazing Race 9#Leg 2 (Brazil)) Jobarts^-Talk 19:23, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I saw this in the episode also (when it aired a few months ago). I think the distillation just served to separate a more pure ethanol product from a sugar cane solution which already contained ethanol. To actually generate the ethanol from the sugar cane, I think fermentation is usually used. There are a couple of newsgroup/forum threads that I found deal with the issue of fermentation in regard to this episode of The Amazing Race: See Thread on alt.tv.amazing-race and Reality Fan Forum: (see replies 153 and 167, in particular). They seem to suggest that after the teams squeezed the raw juice, the teams were provided with previously fermented juice that the teams could then distill. Unfortunately, I am unable to validate their evidence, as I can no longer easily access the episode. If anyone else has any additional information on this, I would be interested in seeing it.

As an aside, when I first saw this episode, I was curious about them using it as a fuel after they distilled it...I would expect that the resulting distillate would contain water because of the ethanol-water azeotrope. Wouldn't this cause a problem when they subsequently used it as a fuel in their vehicles?--GregRM 00:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

From article

Is this paragraph necessary?

Other enzyme companies such as Dyadic International have been using fungi to develop and manufacture cellulases in 150,000-liter industrial fermenters since 1994. With the advent of genetic engineering and genomics, companies like Dyadic, Genencor and Novozymes have the modern biological tools such as Dyadic's patented C1 Host Technology [9] to develop and manufacture large volumes of new and better performing enzyme mixtures to make the production of cellulosic ethanol more economical.

It reads almost like an advertisement, and it is not necessary vital to mention the names of all the companies or specific products, unless they are extremely significant developments. Comments? Titoxd^(?!?) 02:39, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Reason for different percentages being used

No-one mentions the fact that alcohol is hygroscopic. If stored as a 95% solution, in ordinary bottles in a pharmacy, and the bottle gets opened and closed for dispensing, the atmospheric water eventually dilutes it down to what? 70% I suspect. Fact or fiction? The Nature review seems to have been a bit of a disaster? How on earth can an "expert" not be aware of the fact that alcohol is the cheapest and most readily available disinfectant used in rural clinics all over Africa? The proof is in watching what the clinic sisters actually use. But then, one does need published figures. Which should be available from central pharmaceutical warehouses. So I'll see. --Seejyb 10:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The azeotropic point for Ethanol and water is nearly 96% ethanol 4% water, meaning that under normal circumstances that is as pure as it will get (it is possible to achieve higher purity levels though). Normal opening and closing of a bottle will allow some of the alcohol to evaporate off until eventually water is the dominant part of the solution, in other words 51% water 49% ethanol. I got these values straight from the CRC, and a little application of vaporization pressures. Das Nerd 18:04, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Distinctive odor of ethanol?

As students we did class experiments on this. Statistically, the smeller could not distinguish between ethanol, methanol and isopropyl alcohol. Nor could they distinguish the breath smell of persons who had been given a glass of alcohol-free beer or ordinary alcoholic beer. The ketotic diabetic is often described as having the "odour of alcohol" (ketones). So from where the "distinctive odor"? Is there a reference? It seems to me to be a general sort of "alcohol-ish smell sensation", not distinctive of ethanol at all. --Seejyb 10:15, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

what? no way. EtOH absolutely has a distinctive odor. maybe the students in your class were not accustomed to the specific odor of alcohol solvents but it is certainly different than isoprop. and MeOH. I often work with these three chemicals (and acetone) and the difference in odor between all of them is very VERY readily detectable. --Deglr6328 19:49, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

agreed, isopropyl alcholol and ethanol are entirely different odors. Ethanol is a less pungent sweet odor where as a isopropyl (rubbing alcohol) has a much more prominent harsh pungent odor. Kyanite 06:18, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

As the article seems to be missing a citation for this fact, perhaps someone could add: http://www.odour.unsw.edu.au/odorous-compounds.html which lists ethanol as having a "slight alcohol odour". The article currently says that ethanol has a "strong characteristic odor" so this may have to be modified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.158.27.189 (talk) 20:28, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Added, thanks. EdC (talk) 21:24, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a scientist, but it doesn't seem like this needs the "citation needed" tag. I'm not even sure what the nature of such a citation would be. Saying it has an alcohol smell seems like saying the color red has a redish hue. 68.5.10.169 (talk) 21:25, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Some chemists state that pure ethanol has no smell. I have never smelled pure ethanol, so I wouldn't know what it smells like. It could be that the "alcohol odor" I smell when I whiff vodka is not due to ethanol but is due to some other chemical. If you're having trouble understanding this point, be aware that many people think methane smells like farts even though pure methane is odorless. -- Schapel (talk) 22:21, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Ethanol as a food.

Last one for today (but then I always lie): Nowhere in this aticle is alcohol mentioned as a source of energy for humans. Over at the help desk there was some discussion about the calorie value of ethanol. Dieticians write about 7kcal/g, and add that to energy intake, if one consumes alcohol. The reality and science does not support that simple conversion, but this article does not discuss the issue at all. There is certainly some divergent public opinions about this aspect, including the popular "beer belly" idea. Should these sort of facts and fancies be included in the artcle? Should the physiological effects of ethanol (e.g. fat metabolism, hormone balance) be included here? Oops, I see that is a separate article, but the reference was right at the top, not under "See also", so I've added that --Seejyb 10:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Tasteless?

"enhancement of evaporative cooling inside the mouth because of its low vapor pressure). There are studies done on primates of the taste [10].--Deglr6328 19:41, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi there. Keep in mind that many chemicals sold to laboratories add Bitrex to ethanol so people will be discouraged from tasting it. Make sure you are not sampling that kind when you reach your conclusion. I do now know what the answer is. -Joel Wigton

Merge anhydrous and hydrous stubs

These articles could very easily be merged with the main text. --Wtshymanski 22:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Cutting down 'as a fuel'

The merge of the fuel section into ethanol fuel would need of a new, short section. What about:

Main article: ethanol fuel

The largest single use of ethanol is as a motor fuel and fuel additive. The largest national fuel ethanol industries exist in Brazil (all fuel sold in Brazil contains at least 25% ethanol). Since production is easy (from fermentation of sugar from e.g. sugar cane) and environmentaly benign (under ideal conditions the combustion only affords water and carbon dioxide), but it has a lower energy content.

--Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:04, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Decided to merge ethanol#as afuel into ethanol fuel after some vandalising of the section. I'm sorry I did not wait for more opinions. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

with danger of sounding unobjective, I believe that cutting down rainforest to produce ethanol for fuel by the production of sugar cane is at the very least detrimental. Also, as I say below, the energetic efficiency of producing ethanol from starch/glucose/cellulose is nog high at all.Sikkema 21:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Sugar cane is not grown in rain forest areas. -- Alexey Topol (talk) 11:46, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

100% Alcohol contains benzine?

In the section that gets into absolute alcohol, it mentions a method to produce 100% alcohol by using benzine. Then it goes that the result contains small a mounts of benzine. Call me nutty, but how does 100% alcohol contain benzine? Wouldn't it then contain some percentage of benzine? Applekid 22:30, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

You're not nutty (at least not that I can tell), the 100%-claim is not correct. I changed it. Oh, by the way, it is benzene, not benzine, but that is minor. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:34, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, a decent Whiskey contains more benzene and e.g. polyunsaturated hydrocarbons than industrially purified ethanol. There is no such thing as 100 % pure, nowhere. Sikkema 21:13, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The thing which is mixed up here is destilation leads only to 93% or so, but with aceotropic destillation with benzene the water is removed together with the benzene and higher concentrations than 93% can be obtained. In the end a drying with copper sulfate diethylephtalate or sodium removes the remaining tracewater. The whole has to be destilled again and you will obtain 100% alcohol, as long it is stored under nitrogen atmosphere. --Stone 15:12, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

100% pure Ethanol is possible, but the thing is the conditions you need to store it under and create it are so strict that you only really use it for reactions that require absolutely no water.LoyalSoldier (talk) 20:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Flammability

The physical properties section contains ethanol being flammable. Flammability is a chemical property, not a physical property.

Disinfection

Hi,

I am currently working in a cell biology lab in Münster. I found that the lab members are of different opinion concerning the disinfecting power of different dilutions of EtOH. In this article you state that 70% EtOH ist the most disinfecting - is this a study/paper you are quoting? I'd be very grateful if you could forward me the citation.

Thanks a lot,

Alexandra Kroll. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.176.48.77 (talk) 15:58, 15 February 2007 (UTC).

Regarding alcohol as an active ingredient in hand sanitizers. The article indicated that a typical value is 62% which is true however it was noted that the % was in weight, not volume. In fact, the FDA monograph health care antiseptic products indicates that when used as an active ingredient in a topical skin preparation the level must be on the label in volume not by weight in an aqueous solution.

From the TFM Sec. 333.410 Antiseptic handwash or health-care personnel handwash active ingredients.

   The active ingredient of the product consists of any of the 

following within the specified concentration established for each ingredient properly formulated to meet the test requirements in Sec. 333.470, and the product is labeled according to Secs. 333.450 and 333.455:

   (a) Alcohol 60 to 95 percent by volume in an aqueous solution 

denatured according to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms regulations in 27 CFR part 20; —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.158.98.130 (talk) 20:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Intent

Its quiet obvius that when eney one enters this article thay are looking for ethanol as a feul so we should make that article more obvius --J intela 04:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

External Links

This post discusses the scientific and end-consumer use of ethanol but not the business/investment side. One of the links I wanted to add is for an alternative energy blog, www.energyspin.com, this is not a news aggregotor, but business/investment commentary that focuses almost exclusively on ethanol in the US. Please approve this link.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Djhyperman (talk • contribs)

See Wikipedia:External links for why a blog is most unlikely to be an acceptable external link. --Guinnog 14:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

"links to blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority"

This is not a link to a personal blog, this is an investors reference which besides scientific discussion is necessary to implement any alternative energy solution. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Djhyperman (talk • contribs).

You say it's a blog, the site says it's a blog, and all current posts are from a single person... Besides, an encyclopedic article is not a directory of websites. The link is simply inappropriate. Femto 20:10, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Ethanol

it is a type of gas that was put into cron and that was mixed into sugarcane that maked ethanol —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.74.65.168 (talk) 01:21, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

Fuel

"Ethanol fuel is seen in some circles as an attack on indigenous cultures,[15] particularly in Central America, where corn is the staple crop." Is not supported by the reference as the link talks about Bush seeking to limit Hugo Chavez's influence on the US but using ethanol instead of gasoline. Hugo Chavez does not count as indigenous culture. Furthermore, it is not clear how using corn to make ethanol fuel would be an attack on those growing it. As such I removed the sentence. 151.112.57.22 21:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Density and phase 0.789 g/cm³, liquid ...please use SI units. Thank you.

Unreliable source in controversy section

The book The Alcohol Fuel Handbook doesn't meet WP:reliable source. It's published by Infinity Publishing http://www.infinitypublishing.com/ which, as it says on the page, will publish anything you want if you pay them. --Calibas 03:01, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

To further discredit this book, it was claimed that ethanol automobiles can achieve up to 100 mpg. This http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id=18&article_id=3700 says that a gallon of ethanol has only 68% of the energy that a gallon of gas has. How a ethanol vehicle can achieve much higher mpg than a gasoline vehicle is beyond me. The real solution to global warming has already been discovered. It's called solar power and electric cars. This scares the hell out of big oil since this would lead to everybody becoming completely energy independent, I don't blame them for pushing distractions like ethanol and hydrogen power. --Calibas 00:13, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

"The real solution to global warming has already been discovered. It's called solar power and electric cars. " There are many more solutions to global climate change than that! What are we going to do with the 300+ million [gasoline-powered] cars [in the US] that won't run when gasoline is gone? Will humans become extinct before the end of peak oil? Rrrrprrrr (talk) 05:22, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Rice Engineers make ethanol from waste glycerin with E coli

"We identified the metabolic processes and conditions that allow a known strain of E. coli to convert glycerin into ethanol," said chemical engineer Ramon Gonzalez. "It's also very efficient. We estimate the operational costs to be about 40 percent less that those of producing ethanol from corn." [11] Brian Pearson 01:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

In part of fixing up GA tags per WP:UCGA, I see that this article has some issues with regards to it's GA quality. For one, there is a significant lack of references throughout the article, most which should be easily available (even from a ochem textbook). The lead is rather short for the article length (see WP:LEAD) as well. I think these can be easily corrected, and thus I'm not currently suggesting it for a rereview, but I recommend addressing these when you get a chance. --Masem 13:30, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Major changes

Hey guys,

I did some major article splitting and section moving which has left the Absolute Alcohol and Chemicals Derived from Alcohol sections extremely sparse. Could somebody help me write introductions for those sections?

Also, I think there's material in the feedstocks section which is redundant with the Use In Fuel and the controversy sections.

Isaac 21:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Here are two sections that were removed. If you see a good place to add one or both back in, do so! Isaac

Removed section 1

According to Consumer Reports, October 2006, in a flex fuel vehicle, fuel economy drops when an automobile uses E85, a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, althought this may follow from the lower energy content of ethanol, compared to gasoline.

Removed section 2

Wine with less than 16% ethanol is vulnerable to bacteria. Because of this, [[port wine|port]] is often fortified with ethanol to at least 18% ethanol by volume to halt [[fermentation (food)|fermentation]] for retaining sweetness and in preparation for aging, at which point it becomes possible to prevent the invasion of bacteria into the port, and to store the port for long whiles in wooden containers that can 'breathe', thereby permitting the port to age safely without spoiling. Because of ethanol's disinfectant property, alcoholic beverages of 18% ethanol or more by volume can be safely stored for a very long time.

GA sweeps review

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the chemistry articles, and in doing so I see that this article was passed as a GA quite a well ago, on December 8, 2005, by Shimmin. Since it's been awhile, it's good to go over it again.

Unfortunately, as it stands today, I don't think this article meets the existing GA criteria. First of all, there are some significant referencing and source issues, as evident by the numerous 'citation needed' tags. There are also entire sections with no source. Secondly, the lead section is very short, and doesn't adequately summarize the article (see WP:LEAD).

I think there are several sub-sections that have sprouted up, too, some of them without sources. Some of these sub-sections seem to go off into various tangents without really accomplishing much, so that could be tightened up a bit.

I could delist this immediately from WP:GA, but rather than doing that right away, I am more inclined to see if the article can be improved in about a week's time, so I'll put this action on hold until September 8, 2007, and see if we can improve it. I'm glad to help with this as needed. If it doesn't pass GA standards in one week, it'll be delisted per GA criteria. Dr. Cash 05:45, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

The article has been delisted as a Good article for now. Once the referencing and organizational issues are cleared up, please renominate it at WP:GAC. Additionally, the lead section is very short (see WP:LEAD for suggestions). Cheers! Dr. Cash 03:36, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Ethanol bad for motorcycles?

My brother claims it is. Is there any information for this? - Theaveng 14:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

There is an issue; google ethanol and boat engines, or with motorcycle engines. No info on it in this article; it's probably more appropriate in the ethanol fuel article. -Agyle 10:34, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

What does "bad for motorcycles" mean? There are a couple of things about ethanol that are contra-indicative for internal combustion engines. The low energy content of ethanol means that you have to burn about 2.5 times more, by volume, than ordinary petrol. For example E10 mix will give the vehicle about 9% less distance on any given quantity of fuel. The figure for E85 is about two times as much fuel used. That means re-jetting carburettors or modifying injector systems for higher flows.

The other is that ethanol is a much more aggressive solvent. The fuel lines and the seals in the fuel system may not be designed for resistance to alcohol. This is more true for older machines — depending on your country of manufacture — made before 1985 to before 1995. Lin (talk) 03:00, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

One of the main drawbacks is that ethanol dissolves water, while gasoline contains only trace amounts. Anhydrous ethanol is difficult to produce, and exposed to air, it cools as it evaporates and hence causes condensation of water vapor. The water is corrosive to engine parts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.183.110.93 (talk) 15:25, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Rationale for drug classification needs source

The third sentence in the article reads "Based on its abilities to change the human consciousness, alcohol is considered a drug." I find it hard to believe there's a single, generally agreed-upon rationale for considering it a drug, as it has many physiological effects, and there are a lot of cultures with different attitudes toward alcohol. Also, drug has many meanings, so its meaning in this case should be clarified. Whatever the veracity of the statement or meaning of drug, a source is needed, so I tagged the sentence with {{Fact}}. -Agyle 10:49, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Someone removed and someone else restored Fact tag. Further thoughts: drug can mean medicinal or recreational, and in the latter sense it can be considered a drug. In the U.S. I think that's uncommon usage, maybe a non-NPOV jibe about recreational drug use. If it means consumption causes intoxication, it's enough to say that. For examplle, "It is the intoxicating agent in fermented and distilled liquors" (Wordnet 3.0 source) or merged into the opening sentence as "is best known as the intoxicating agent, alcohol, found in alcoholic beverages." If it is classified as a medicinal drug, "medicinal drug" would clarify that. -Agyle 16:50, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Please help bring back the GA status

Hi all. As you can see from the GA review, this article has recently lost the GA status it once had. I plan an effort this weekend (22-23 September) to work on bringing it back to GA quality. But I'd like to recruit other experienced editors to collaborate on this. Feel free to comment here or on my talk page regarding any contribution you think you can make. I'd like to target early next week for resubmission for review. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 16:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

To those of you who would like to help... see Ethanol051208 for a side-by-side comparison of the December 8, 2005 version that earned the GA rating with todays version. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 01:19, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Ready for initial review

I have posted my revision efforts for getting this article back to GA status. Before submitting it for GA review, I'd like to allow some time for feedback in this forum from other editors of this article. Please provide your constructive input. Thanks. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 23:01, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Semi Automatic peer Review

Semi Automatic Peer Review has been placed at this page to peruse. Changes and improvements to the article are needed to help achieve GA status. SriMesh | talk 02:02, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

GA review

This article's Good Article promotion has been put on hold. During review, some issues were discovered that can be resolved without a major re-write. This is how the article, as of November 27, 2024, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?:

1. The text describing which catalysts are required in the halogenation reactions is not clearly associated with the reaction they describe. Needs something like "The reaction with HCl requires.." and "The reaction with HBr requires.."
2. Saying "it is necessary to take measures to remove water from the reaction mixture" is wordy, just say "it is necessary to remove water from the reaction mixture"
3. Ditto "Ethanol combusting in the confines of an evaporating dish", just say "Ethanol combusting in an evaporating dish"
4. What does "pressure support" mean in - "Oil has historically had a much higher EROEI, especially on land in areas with pressure support"? Link or explain.
5. The factoids in the "Hazards" section need to be incorporated into the relevant sections of the article. At present they are just a list of tenuously-related facts tagged onto the end of the article.

2. Factually accurate?:

1. I'm not sure about the claim in the lead about fermentation being the first known chemical reaction. This is probably the first biotechnology, but fire may have pre-dated alcohol.
2. Reference 34 needs to be to the study itself, rather than a press release. Include both if you want a free-access reference.
3. "Groundwater contamination scares" - Are these really just scares?

3. Broad in coverage?:

1. Some info on the thermodynamics of combustion would be useful considering the amount of space spent discussing its use as a fuel.

4. Neutral point of view?: Yes

5. Article stability? Yes

6. Images?: Yes

Please address these matters soon and then leave a note here showing how they have been resolved. After 48 hours the article should be reviewed again. If these issues are not addressed within 7 days, the article may be failed without further notice. Thank you for your work so far. Tim Vickers 04:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Excellent work, a really Good Article! Tim Vickers 03:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

---

Sorry? Are we supposed to know what a line drawn through a statement means? I am astounded that anyone thinks that this article rises to GA level. Alcohol abuse and alcoholism are one of the leading causes of crime and health issues. Not mentioned here. Risible. Is this a joke? 71.31.147.72 (talk) 14:33, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

The strikethroughs above indicate that the concerns have been addressed in the article. Good articles on Wikipedia are those which meet a certain level of encylopedic reliability, eg. are properly sourced, conform to the style guidelines etc. As an article on the chemical ethanol, discussion of alcoholism is largely irrelevent here, however we do have articles on Alcohol, Alcoholism, Alcohol abuse, alcoholic drinks, drunkenness, short- and long-term effects of alcohol as well as other articles, where these concerns are covered. Yunshui 雲‍水 14:45, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Neutralized ethanol

Ethanol for analytic purposes is said to be neutralized when potassium or sodium hydroxide is added to ethanol containing a pH indicator, such phenolphthalein, until its color begins to turn. The solution can then be used in a titration to determine the pH of a test solution.

This doesn't make sense. I've taken it out of the article for now. Can someone explain and add references before re-adding?

To me, it seems like a misunderstanding. Phenolphthalein indicator is usually a 1 % w/v solution in ethanol. You add this to your test solution, and use it for titration! --Rifleman 82 15:17, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry this doesn't seem right at all. The most Sodium Hydroxide is going to do is make trace amounts of ethylene. Considering your leaving group is the exact same as the base it means any reaction you get will just swap around hydroxide groups. LoyalSoldier (talk) 20:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Great article

Really good job. Thank you. 70.188.129.49 14:55, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Split up page?

Do you think we should maybe split up the page (maybe one entry covering its general chemical properties while another covers its use as a fuel)? 75.182.102.162 16:56, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

There already is an ethanol fuel page. --Rifleman 82 17:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

nervous system and ethanol

I was wondering if anyone knew the reason why ethanol effects the nervous system, does it interference with ions, proteins, or entire neurons? Just wondering. A chemical reaction formula if it interferes with chemicals would be nice too.

In short, the main effect is blocking the GABA-A receptors in the central nervous system. 129.125.166.147 (talk) 10:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Automatic addition of "class=GA"

A bot has added class=GA to the WikiProject banners on this page, as it's listed as a good article. If you see a mistake, please revert, and leave a note on the bot's talk page. Thanks, _BOT Giggabot (talk) 05:33, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Toxic

"is a flammable, colorless, highly toxic chemical compound, and is best known as the alcohol found in alcoholic beverages."

"Because of ethanol's ease of production and its low toxicity"

-Ass [This comment posted by 212.30.218.14 at 21:49, 11 December 2007]

The discrepancy was a result of recent vandalism and has been fixed. And please keep the ethnic slurs to yourself. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 22:07, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Ethanol fuels section growing and growing

Once again the ethanol fuels section is growing unnecessarily. A few months ago, this was one of the reasons the ethanol article lost its GA rating. This section in ethanol should provide ONLY an overview of the topic. For detailed info, please put it into Ethanol fuel. When next ethanol comes up for GA sweeps review, most of the new ethanol fuels section will be moved out and over to the fuels article anyway. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 02:56, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

>>> The Pimental study which is totally bogus has been used to try to keep ethanol from replacing gasoline and has been indirectly used here as it has in other places to impugn ethanol fuel for cars to maintain the petrol monopoly; and saying that food prices will go up and we don't have enough land etc. Even though sources can be cited for these fabrications they are false; they are attempts by big oil to keep competition out. This section is probably growing because much of it is not true. These people [Pimental and friends] are supposed to be respected scientists from ivy league schools but their science is most likely corrupted by money from rich amoral corporations. Who polices the police?

Rrrrprrrr (talk) 05:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Minor Controversy Editing

Hey, I just added a bit to the calculation about ethanol displacing gasoline to take into account the lower energy density of ethanol versus the gasoline it is supposed to replace. I probably screwed up the formatting of the link I used to get my data (the wikipedia page on energy density), so if someone would be so kind as to fix it (and tell me how it's supposed to be cited) I'd appreciate that. Now I'm off to the Ethanol as a Fuel page to see if it has a similar calculation in need of editing! Happytrombonist16 (talk) 04:28, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Misuse of Reference 49

I found a discrepancy while referencing the numbers given in the Use >> Controversy section of this article. It says that there are 2263 million acres of farmland in the US, but when I checked the site it referenced, it stated that there were 2263 million acres of land in the US and 938.28 million acres of farmland. I would like someone who keeps track of this page or whatever to check again in case I got it wrong or something. If so, the numbers calculated will also have to change.

Assuming that the rest of the calculations are correct: the US has approx. 938 million acres of farmland. Average corn yield is 140 bushels per acre. Amount of ethanol from a bushel of corn is 2.5 gallons. Therefore, the US could produce 328.3 billion gallons of ethanol if it allocated all of its farmland to such production.

By the way, reference 49 goes to United States Facts Sheet.

--Shiftingskye (talk) 08:47, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Ethanol toxicity

An acupuncturist, Jim Butler saw this discussion on my webpage, copied below. He decided to make the edit before the discussion was finalised. I've brought it here for discussion.

We are back to this again. Once again, the sentence as you have left it implies that any solvent, no matter how toxic, would be ok for this, provided it was cheap. This is clearly not the case. I have tried to come up with compromise language for this, but you object to that as well. Please fix the sentence so that it explains the full reason for use in human-consumable products. And note that your insistence that it is either toxic or it isn't is hogwash. You can find the phrase "low toxicity" over and over again in the Merck Index of Chemicals and Drugs, for numerous compounds. So the phrase does and an understood meaning. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 16:55, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

You are repeating a misunderstanding I have already corrected. I do not believe that something is either toxic or not. My edit did not insist on that at all. Your attempted "compromise" went against what I thought was the consensus. May we agree on the following "Because of ethanol's low production cost and relatively "low toxicity" (as defined in the Merck Index of Chemicals and Drugs) it is used widely as a solvent etc etc."? Mccready (talk) 17:09, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have my Merck with me right now, so I can't tell you at this time what Merck as to say specifically about ethanol, so let me get back to you on that tonight. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 17:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

First let me say that I admire what you are doing with your pseudoscience project.

Now, before I get to my missive, let me suggest langauge for ethanol that we might be able to agree upon: "... and because as used in these applications it affords negligible risk to human health."

I don't want to say "as defined by Merck Index" because nowhere does Merck state its definition. The phrase, "low toxicity" is widely and generally understood, and it is a relative term -- relative to exposures expected in the compounds application. Some examples: An article I just wrote is a stub for Phenidone, which Merck does explicitly say has low toxicity. This does not mean that it's ok to sprinkle it on your breakfast cereal, but as a photographic developer, it poses little risk to a careless darkroom person who forgets to wash his hands before having lunch. The insecticide, malathion, is listed in the literature as having low toxicity to mammals. This does not mean that I am comfortable having large residues of it in my vegetables, but I am comfortable having the mosquito-control truck spraying drainage ditches in my neighborhood with this stuff.

Your assertion that any exposure to ethanol by pregnant women is harmful is also suspect, since ethanol exposure is unavoidable unless you proscribe pregnant women from eating such wholesome foods as bread or fresh fruit, both of which have measurable concentrations of ethanol. The mouthwash I buy from Walgreen's contains 27% ethanol by volume, yet it has no warning on the label against use by pregnant women. The reason clearly is that the exposure you gets by swishing 10 ml of it around in your mouth for less than a minute each day and spitting it out is not enough to cause birth defects. Hence it has low toxicity in this application.

Also, can you declare a substance as being highly toxic if it is harmful only to a small segment of the population? Examples: I am advised by my doctor that exposure to aspirin could be fatal because I survived a near fatal stomach bleed some years ago. There are plenty of other folks in my same situation. Does that make aspirin highly toxic? Amounts of glucose that I could tolerate easily would be calamitous to a type 1 diabetic. So how toxic is glucose? There are plenty of people could die as a consequence of eating even a single peanut. Does that make peanuts highly toxic?

Just some things to think about. If you read past my second paragraph, I thank you for your perseverence. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 04:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Karl, you logic is wrong in several places that I hope you will reveal to yourself on careful re-reading. You also misquote me again. Ethanol is harmful to some foetuses. Our major difference is on your claim that it is "widely and generally understood". Given all that can we agree on "as listed in the Merck index"? Mccready (talk) 07:25, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Merck only lists ethanol's LD50, which, if you use that as a measure of toxicity, makes it less toxic than sodium chloride. I don't see what's wrong with the language I've proposed, which says nothing about toxicity. It only states that the applications as solvent for food additives, scents, mouthwash, etc. don't pose a hazard to human health. Clearly an authority such as the FDA agrees with that, otherwise they would not allow it. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 13:28, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

What is wrong with the more accurate formulation I suggest? I don't need to repeat that your formulation is factually incorrect despite any views you believe the FDA has. Mccready (talk) 02:13, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

It is NOT more accurate. Merck does not define "low toxicity." It is disingenuous to imply that they do. I am very near submitting this issue to arbitration. Can you indicate literature where use as directed of products like cologne or alcohol-containing mouthwash has led to fetal injury due to the effects of ethanol? If not, please accept that such use is NOT known to cause harm. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 02:55, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Stay calm. Assume good faith. Does Merck use the term or not? Answer yes. Whether it "defines" the term is not at issue with my formulation. Therefore my formulation ""as listed in the Merck index" is accurate is it not? While your preference for "negligible" harm is clearly unfactual since ethanol has caused foetal alcohol syndrome and is responsible for a huge percentage of the hospital population at any one time. I don't understand what you are trying to defend. Your request for me to find literature sites on mouthwash etc seems slightly fatuous. The issue is ethanol. But for your own information, people checking into detox regularly have their mouthwashes and even hair creams confiscated for obvious reasons. Once again I ask you what is wrong with my formulation? Mccready (talk) 03:15, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

The 9th edition does not explicitly use the phrase, "low toxicity," in the monograph for ethanol. Instead it lists the LD50, which is a numeric way of expressing the toxicity of a substance. Statistics like LD50 does not belong in the lead of an article, since the majority of readers will not know what it means. The Merck does use the "low toxicity" phrase on numerous other compounds, and in each case the implication that it is relative to the application for the substance. As for your statements about alcoholics getting drunk by drinking mouthwash or cologne, while I do not argue that that does not happen, that is clearly NOT the directed use of such products. My point is that use AS DIRECTED of these products is not known to cause harm. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 03:26, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Can we agree to remove claim for low toxicity, however defined, from the head. It has the potential to confuse the general reader. I'm very happy for full discussion within the article. Mccready (talk) 10:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused about the disagreement. Ethanol is comparatively less toxic than many other solvents. Is this something disputed? I think it's far safer for me to pour ethanol down the drain than chloroform. Or to use ethanol in a reaction than benzene, toluene, or maybe HMPA. But what do I know? I'm just a chemist. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 10:26, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree in all respects. I think your edit was perfect and should lay this silly debate to rest. The rest of the lead, including "mildly toxic" in the first sentence, is fine. --Jim Butler^(talk) 10:55, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Do you guys dispute that pregnant women are advised to avoid drinking ethanol because of proven foetal alcohol syndrome at low doses? Mccready (talk) 11:04, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Are you on a crusade to save pregnant women from fetal alcohol syndrome? Why don't you stay on-topic. Toxicity is relative.

When choosing a solvent for use in consumer products, is it not preferable to choose something which is edible in itself, instead of something which is not? I won't mind drinking water or ethanol; I would hesitate at drinking acetonitrile or chloroform, no matter how cavalierly I treat it in the lab.

Let's turn your argument around. High consumption of sodium ions may be undesirable for various reasons. Does that make sodium chloride very toxic? --Rifleman 82 (talk) 12:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

That's the point. Low doses can cause Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. I'm on a mission for an accurate encyclopedia. Simple. But I liked your edit and will adopt it at the top, though of course we need to refer to it in the article. Mccready (talk) 08:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Combustion

The formula given for combustion in this article doesn't look right. Hydrogen doesn't balance. I know it's ugly, but I think the formula should be more like

C₂H₅OH + ${\frac {11}{4}}$O₂ $\rightarrow$ 2CO₂ + ${\frac {5}{2}}$H₂O

Am I missing something here? I'm not a chemist, just an engineering student. 142.150.137.124 (talk) 17:01, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The reaction is balanced correctly in the article. There are 6 hydrogens in C₂H₅OH, not five - the formula is just written a little funny. 148.177.1.211 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 17:34, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Yikes, that was stupid of me! 142.150.139.203 (talk) 16:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Source of octane rating?

Hi there!

I might have missed something but I could not find the reference or the source of the octane number.

1Chaan (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 19:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Alcohol fuel

The World price for sugar is 7 cents a pound. What is the price of alcohol/fuel per gallon ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Woofbarkwoof (talk • contribs) 00:41, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

New paragraph in 'controversy' section

I have no real knowledge of this topic or the politics surrounding it. With that in mind, I didn't feel qualified to re-write a large paragraph that was recently added (diff here), however it still reads like it might not be wholly NPOV. Perhaps someone here with more insight than I could take a peek? --PeruvianLlama^(spit) 08:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

For one, blogspot is not considered a reliable source. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 10:19, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I have removed this paragraph now, for the reasons given above, and because it introduced considerable repetition. Johnfos (talk) 21:00, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Putting food in your gas tank while people in the Third World starve because of soaring food prices

Now, first of all, I'm not speaking on behalf of any oil companies, car companies, or right-wing groups. Besides, I'm a pro-environment centrist who drives a hybrid.

My question is: how people can continue to put food in their gas tank, while knowning full well that the increased demand for corn—because of ethanol fuel use—is making it impossible for people in the Third World to eat? Would someone mind offering an explanation for that? Ericster08 (talk) 16:08, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I recommend reading the current "Scientific American" article by Jeffrey Sachs. He says that with improved GMO seeds, irrigation, and fertilization, the crop yields in Africa (and other places) can be increased from 1 ton/hectare to 3-5 tons/hectare. I sympathize with your frustration, but consider that shipping grain to Africa could use up even more fuel. The reason food is so expensive in the US is that it has to be transported so far. We need to transport food less not more. Locally grown food is also likely to coincide with healthier food. Americans are not going to stop driving. We need more efficient vehicles and more fuel (see hypermiling, electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, biofuels). The term "Third world" is not politically correct. Also see Special Period about the low-energy agriculture change in Cuba. --Mikiemike (talk) 05:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for understanding. I'll check out those sites.

I guess "Developing countries" would be more politically correct. Ericster08 (talk) 06:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Strange sentance

"Ethanol is also known as EtOH, using the common organic chemistry notation of representing the ethyl group (C2H5) with Et. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism maintains an EtOH database.[1]"

This last sentance really has nothing to do with ethanol, other than sharing the name. I'm going to take it out. Rhetth (talk) 21:55, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Media:ethanol is aone of the use full liquid.95% alcohol is dilute with water.form a win. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.53.152 (talk) 05:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

waste

Does anybody know if there is any waste FROM ethanol? How is it disposed? it seems that Ethanol is from all sorts of wastes. urgent --Ratstail91 (talk) 23:08, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Reference to EtOH being used as abbreviation by medical staff

I have removed a reference in the introduction referring to the abbreviation EtOH being used by EMS and medical staff. I think this is really just trivia and at the very most could be mentioned later in the article. I don't think it is important enough to mention in the introduction. Yes we do use the term EtOH (usually ETOH without the lowercase 't'), but this is only as a semi-euphomism as it is easier mentally to right down "heavy ETOH intake" on a chart than "heavy alcohol intake". I have left the mention of EtOH as a common abbreviation, but I don't think pointing out use by one particular group as particularly useful seeing as I am sure many different groups of people use the abbreviation. Why mention one specifically? What do others think?

Jath

Jpala (talk) 15:33, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Purification

I moved up the dessication techniques because these are used in virtually all corn based ethanol production. AGeorgas (talk) 04:13, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Brazil and ethanol as fuel (hydrous) and as additive (anhydrous) for gasoline

In Brazil we use anhydrous ethanol as an additive for gasoline (known as Gasohol or E25) because if it contains water, it could form a two phase solution with the gasoline, but the "pure" ethanol in our fuel pumps actually is in the hydrous (94%-96%) form wich is cheaper to obtain. Spra (talk) 01:38, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

That's a common myth. The truth is that with pure gasoline, water can accumulate at the bottom of your tank, since gasoline and water don't mix in a stable way. If you add ethanol to the mix, the water will be bound by the ethanol and combusted in the engine - i.e. with any quantity of ethanol in your tank, from E5 upwards, you will never encounter water at its bottom. -- Alexey Topol (talk) 11:31, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Ethanol as fuel

Currently the section on ethanol a a fuel reads - "The poor lubricant properties of ethanol can cause friction based engine seizures and a significantly reduced life-span of an internal combustion engine."

I think this should read something like -

Use of Ethanol/Gasoline fuel mixes have been attributed as the cause of engine failures and a reduced engine life span.

If the engine is in good operational condition and the engines fuel/air mixture is near optimal, no significant residues of fuel combustion remain. On Methanol/Gasolines fuel mixtures, "Methanol, however should be used only in conjuction with solubilisers." . Using a solubiliser prevents separation of the Methanol/gasoline. This may have been a source of problems in early fuel mixes. The fuel/air mixture has no lubrication function in an engine. However an incorrect Fuel/air ratio in the mixture, can cause washing of cylinder bores and promote engine seizure.

Modern gas engines are not lubricated by the gasoline. At cold-starts, ethanol may condense on the cylinder walls and wash off the oil there, but as soon as the engine is luke-warm (after a minute or so), this ain't a problem anymore. Clearly you should avoid a lot of cold starts with ethanol, though - but cold starts with gas are also corrosive to the engine. -- Materialscientist (talk) 23:55, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Gas engines may be cooled by it, but ethanol fuels cool even better than gasoline, so there is no problem with cooling, either. -- Materialscientist (talk) 23:55, 18 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexey Topol (talk • contribs) 11:35, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Potent?

The introduction to this article currently describes ethanol as a "potent psychoactive drug". Potency is an inverse relationship to the amount of a drug necessary to produce effects (see wikipedia article on (pharmacological) potency). For example, 100 micrograms Fentanyl produces effects comparable to 10 mg morphine; fentanyl is said to be 100 times the potency of morphine. The wikipedia article on potency describes drugs like morphine and chlorpromazine as potent, requiring small amounts to produce effects. The article describes drugs like ibuprofen and aspirin as being of low potency, requiring hundreds of milligrams to produce effects. Ethanol is orally active at levels exceeding 10-15 grams. 10 grams of most known drugs would be considered a massive dose. Even though ethanol can produce powerful effects in large doses, this drug is of very low potency. The word "potent" could be appropriately changed to "powerful". These two words are not interchangeable in pharmacology. I tried make this edit but it was reverted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.162.86.103 (talk) 22:42, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Changed in the article. (this comment was invisible because of coding error in the thread above it) Materialscientist (talk) 23:55, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

pharmacology section

I just added somewhat to the pharmacology section because I think there is much more to be said about it. I added some half-life information that I found on Biological half-life. but it isn't very clear and needs clarification by someone who understands the concept more than I. Theguy0000 (talk) 19:45, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Misuse of sources

Jagged 85 (talk · contribs) is one of the main contributors to Wikipedia (over 67,000 edits), and practically all of his edits have to do with Islamic science, technology and philosophy. This editor has persistently misused sources here over several years. This editor's contributions are always well provided with citations, but examination of these sources often reveals either a blatant misrepresentation of those sources or a selective interpretation, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent. Please see: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85. That's an old and archived RfC. The point is still valid though, and his contribs need to be doublechecked. I searched the page history, and found 4 edits by Jagged 85 (for example, see this edit). Tobby72 (talk) 22:10, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I cut this from the article

Its isolation by distillation was first described by the [[Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam|Arab chemist]], [[Al-Kindi]] (Alkindus, 801–873), who unambiguously described the distillation of wine. [[Jābir ibn Hayyān]] (721–815) also contributed to the development of [[distillation]] techniques, mentioning the flammable vapors of boiled wine.<ref name="al-Hassan">{{cite web|url=http://www.history-science-technology.com/Notes/Notes%207.htm|title=Alcohol and the Distillation of Wine in Arabic Sources|accessdate=2008-03-29|last=Hassan|first=Ahmad Y|authorlink=Ahmad Y Hassan|work=History of Science and Technology in Islam}}</ref>{{Verify source|date=June 2010}}

The web site cannot be trusted. The quote about the "flaming wine bottles" is from Aristotle. The quote from al-Kindi is ambiguous at best for reliable info please see Forbes, Robert James (1970). A short history of the art of distillation: from the beginnings up to the death of Cellier Blumenthal. BRILL. ISBN 9789004006171. Retrieved 18 June 2010.Its got the Whole story.J8079s (talk) 23:08, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Hydroxyethyl

Hi, I noticed hydroxyethyl redirects to this article. I'm really not good at chemistry - is this a meaningful redirect? Should it be redirecting to -as an example- hydroxyethyl starch instead?Greswik (talk) 14:47, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

NFPA health rating

Ethanol's NFPA health rating is listed as either 0 or 2 on industrial material safety data sheets. Does someone have a source for the correct rating? Sandcherry (talk) 00:14, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

It is "2" per http://www.nfpa.org/Assets/files/AboutTheCodes/704/CLA-AAA_ROPminutes_01-10.pdf

Sandcherry (talk) 14:09, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Acidity/Basicity Confusion

I think the section on acid-base chemistry is somewhat ambiguous.

The concept of acids and bases is fundamentally relative. But as a rule of thumb we use water as a benchmark.

Morrison and Boyd (6th Ed)(the reference given on the page itself) pg. 526 (sec 16.6) it clearly states the ethanol is a weaker acid than water, which implies that in a solution of water it tends to act as a base. Generally the pH of ethanol is taken as roughly being equal to 7.1. It is a very very weak base, but a base nevertheless.

The section can use some clearing up with the terminology. I am not a regular editor on wikipedia and based on past experiences any edits made to technical articles, by a non-regular user have a tendency of being reverted automatically as being random edits.

I feel someone should make an effort to clear up the matter.

Again, it is important to state objectively on the terms acids and bases being relative.

Also, in technical articles, subjective terms like nearly equal (pKa of being EtOH = 15.7 and water = 16, is said to be nearly equal), do not help. It may be nearly equal, even on tasting we might not be able to perceive a difference, but the difference exists nonetheless and the difference has an interpretation on the substance being an acid or a base. Albeit a weak one. Subjective terms can be used (still with great care) when describing phenomena like acidity or basicity which themself are relative concepts, but the concept of equality is purely objective using subjective terms here reduces the scientific quality. We can call is a weak base, but it is a base.

I agree in that the section needs some work. As I am not a native English speaker I don't feel confident enough, though. But what occured to me is, that water, as far as I know, has a pKa of 14, not 16. And the pKb-value of Ethanol in the box with technical data seems fairly odd with a value of -1.9. Wouldn't Ethanol then be a even stronger base than ammonia? It seems to me the value refers maybe to Ethanol's corresponding acid CH3CH2OH2+. I found a value of 16.2 on a random page (in German). Not very reliable, but for a quick search much more plausible. And would suggest, that Ethanol reacts as a acid in water, not as a base, since the pKs value of 15.9 is slightly smaller than the pKb value of 16. Could somebody please confirm my thought? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.86.54.144 (talk) 12:27, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

As another user, I agree with the above. It seems to me that ethanol is basic (?). pW (same as pKa of water but that is unclear) is 14. Which would make pKb of ethanol around -2 (pKb = 14- pKa, as given on the pKa page), making it a strong base. My guess is that the "pKa of water is 16" is entirely wrong. 50.202.136.142 (talk) 18:16, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Ethanol is slightly basic, and the pKa of -2 is WAY off. That would imply that ethanol is a stronger base than the hydroxide ion itself. I am not sure, but I believe that the formula to convert a Ka to Kb is Ka÷Kw². Can somebody verify this? If it works, the pKb can be determined.

If the formula is right, the calculated pKb is 13.1—a lot better looking. 71.176.20.116 (talk) 18:51, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Autoprotolysis (self-ionisation)

What is the autodissociation constant of ethanol?--188.26.22.131 (talk) 16:30, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Animals seeking ethanol - citation 85

This citation is not accurately used in the text. The article online actually supports the proposition that animals sometimes actively seek naturally occurring forms of ethanol (at approximately 3.8% volume, in nectar of the Bertram palm). 94.168.121.126 (talk) 23:47, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

B20 blatant misstatement

The statement "Comparing ethanol blends with gasoline alone, they showed reductions of 8% with the biodiesel / ethanol blend known as B20" is a blatant misstatement. B20 is 80% diesel #2 and 20% biodiesel. Biodiesel is esterified vegetable oil. Biodiesel contains zero ethanol. Biodiesel production entails the use of methanol (not ethanol), but none of the methanol may be allowed to pollute the final product, lest vehicle damage result. Any amount of any alcohol is extremely damaging to the fuel injection system of a diesel. Fnj2 (talk) 00:21, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Changed biodiesel/ethanol to biodiesel/petrodiesel - did this address the issue? Materialscientist (talk) 00:30, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The infographic is non-pov

The infographic shows only positive physical reactions to small or moderate alcohol. seems to imply heavy use has only negative effects and light use has only positive effects, which is not right at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.204.132.26 (talk) 03:38, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

You may want to talk about that to the creator, here: [[12]]. ElPeste (talk) 05:36, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

About the history

The article reads "Although distillation was well known by the early Greeks and Arabs, the first recorded production of alcohol from distilled wine was by the School of Salerno alchemists in the 12th century". Please, can you improve this part; eaither early Greeks and Arabs are credited for the distillation or not. If they are, please provide refences, if they are not please remove this bit. As far as I remember, the discovery of ethanol is usually credited to Persian alchemist Al Razi. Anyways, it is nonsense to only state the 12th century Italy as the earliest date of distillation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.58.221 (talk) 01:23, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

As I have heard Zakariya Raazi (~900 AD) was the first to discover pure alcohol. In fact it is well-known in history that Raazi used ethanol to make fire (and he lived in 10th century ). Although I don't have evidence for that, I think more investigation is needed in this subject. Check this :Who_discovered_alcohol .Thanks.--Hadian.hn (talk) 10:36, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Psychoactive drug

What constitutes a mild versus powerful psychoactive drug? Should the adjective be dropped? Sandcherry (talk) 03:43, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

When its effects are more powerful at similar potency levels to other drugs in its class, in this case, Depressants. 72.228.154.110 (talk) 03:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Ethanol - purity of grain alcohol

This article claims that several techniques are used to obtain "pure" ethanol including dessication with starch, dessication with corn grits, dessication with zeolites, azeotropic distillation ( with benzene, glycerine,...) and extractive distillation. It then goes on to claim the this absolute alcohol is not for human consumption because of the benzene. This does not follow from the preceding. I find it hard to believe that the use of starch or corn grits would lead to toxic contaminates. I find this article confusing and not coherent. I'm a chemist and if I don't like it, it isn't likeable. I thought grain alcohol (which is consumable) was "pure" ethanol, and this article does a miserable job of informing me about it. I wish I knew enough about the subject to improve it.71.31.149.133 (talk) 19:22, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Grain alcohol is 190 proof or 95% ethanol, with 5% water. If one uses azeotropic distillation, then the absolute ethanol could be contaminated with traces of benzene, which is typically utilized to do the azeotropic distillation. Other methods of water removal may or may not leave behind small amounts of potentially toxic material. It's kind of pointless to worry about using absolute ethanol, as it is going to pick up that water from the ice cubes or your body, so I am not aware of anyone truly being interested in drinking it.JSR (talk) 19:29, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Uses - as a fuel

The paragraph beginning with "Ethanol combustion in an internal combustion engine" has several citation needed statements in the body.

"These data have been assembled into The Clean Fuels Report comparison of fuel emissions[64] and show that ethanol exhaust generates 2.14 times as much ozone as does gasoline exhaust.[citation needed] When this is added into the custom Localised Pollution Index (LPI) of The Clean Fuels Report the local pollution (pollution that contributes to smog) is 1.7 on a scale where gasoline is 1.0 and higher numbers signify greater pollution.[citation needed]"

A review of the reference 64, shows it to be the source of the data quoted requiring citation. (64. ^ Jones, T.T.M. The Clean Fuels Report: A Quantitative Comparison Of Motor Fuels, Related Pollution and Technologies (2008))

The prime difficulty is that this is a single reference, with no clear consensus and no real way to assess the quality of the data analysis, as it will take a minimum of 392 euros to purchase the paper. The data was obtained from a sample sheet from the report, in which E85 is compared with a variety of other alternate fuels. With no clear source for the information, and barring no other sources, I would suggest that this sentence be removed. JSR (talk) 18:06, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Flammability

"Mixtures of ethanol and water that contain more than about 50% ethanol are flammable and easily ignited."

50% by volume or by mass? Fundamentisto (talk) 14:19, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Volume. Sandcherry (talk) 05:08, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

pharmacology section

which parts of the brain does it effect? also i think this might need to be added to the alcoholic beverages article. theres no pharmacology section in that article (despite the fact that its 100 pages long lol). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.15.165.150 (talk) 04:55, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Inconsistent Formulae

Please can a subject expert reconcile the formulae? The infobox has Molecular formula C₂H₆O but the Chemical formula section begins ... molecular formula CH₃CH₂OH. Its empirical formula is C₂H₆OH. I'm not sure which is the better "molecular formula" - it may be a matter of opinion and I've also seen C₂H₅OH elsewhere - but we should be consistent. I do know that the empirical formula needs to shed one of its hydrogen atoms; my guess is the final one but I'd rather the page were edited by someone who isn't just guessing! Thanks, Certes (talk) 20:52, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Corrected at least the incorrect formula, but I think the reason the infobox seems to be wrong is that the "molecular formula" there is usually, as in this case, the simplest possible molecular formula. This just lists the element content, without regard to functional groups as the hydroxyl here. --vuo (talk) 21:25, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Vuo. I see that more stray hydroxyls have arrived in the Chembox, in parameters InChI and StdInChI which don't seem to be displayed. I've reverted them; please reinstate them if they made sense. Certes (talk) 22:52, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Molecular Dynamics

Is the methyl group furthest from the oxygen in constant rotational motion?

I'm trying to understand organic chemistry. While reading the article was trying to figure out if ethanol had sigma bond rotation. It seems like it would but I'm not sure. I suggest adding a link or two someplace alluding to weather part of this molecule does or does not rotate. This sort of information is probably more useful as a peripheral comprehension check than as something pertinent and essential about ethanol. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to point out internal rotation in ever article about any molecule in which internal rotation occurs. However, mentioning it in articles which readers new to chemistry are likely to encounter may have merit. Would it be acceptable for me to make a version of the space-filling diagram that was instead an animation or would that be to distracting and non-format compliant? Pstaight (talk) 23:26, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Molecular Formula

I'm only a student, so forgive me if I accede to mistake. In regards to the first section 'Chemical formula', it states that the molecular formula for ethanol is CH₃CH₂OH. I thought this was strictly the condensed formula, but here it's called the molecular formula (which should rather be the simplified C₂H₆O?). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.22.207.207 (talk) 23:14, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

See chemical formula and empirical formula which explain the difference and formula flexibility. Sandcherry (talk) 04:21, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Etymology

Since this page also treats the etymology of "alcohol" (rightly so, as alcohol is the common name of ethanol, while alcohol is the page abouot the artificial term in chemical nomenclature), here is a prime example of how well-meaning edits go wrong if people fail to respect both WP:CITE and WP:RS.

Google "Rachel Hajar" and "alcohol", and you will find the internet is full of copy-pasta of the wiki-snippet

According to Rachel Hajar, the classical Arabic term for alcohol is الغول (al-ġūl) or غول (ġūl), as used in Qur'an verse 37:47

This is wrong on practically all levels, and because there was no reference, it was difficult to figure out. Strictly speaking, because there was no reference, it should just have been removed on sight. It is in fact based on a reference[13], but (a) the content of the reference was completely garbled by the wiki editor, and (b) the reference even when reported correctly isn't worth mentioning.

a) al-gul is not the "classical Arabic term for alcohol". The point is that we have here a suggestion that alcohol has in fact the etymology al-gul "demon" and not al-kuhl "antimony". The hypothesis is based on a Quranic verse which uses gul "demon" in reference to drunkenness.

b) the article is by a cardiologist and it is about a historical perspective on the health effects of alcohol (ethanol). It isn't about etymology, and the author does not pretend to have any etymological expertise. In fact, the suggestion appears in a separate box, signed "H.A. Hajar, MD", presumably the author's husband who happened to come up with a random suggestion for an alternative etymology and wanted to send it to print alongside his wife's article.

Needless to say, this suggestion doesn't hold any water. The development of the meaning "ethanol" from "powder of antimony" happened entirely in Europe. Al-kuhl was loaned in the Middle Ages in its actual Arabic meaning. And that's the end of the al-gul sugggestion. Furthermore, the Arabs in the 7th century (when the Quranic verse was written) did not know about distilling; the "spirit of wine" was not known to be separable from the wine. The "demon" discussed in the Quranic text is to be understood naively, as an actual demon causing headache or drunkenness in the drinker (the context, of course, being the prohibition of such beverages). The Arabs did learn about distilling after they conquered Alexandria, and the knowledge was "returned" to the West around the 12th century (whence the Arabic loan for the technology).

But if you must refer to it, you have to (a) report it correctly instead of completely garbling its essence and (b) make clear that this is just a random idea by a random person and not a serious etymological suggestion. --dab (𒁳) 10:57, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

How is ethanol produced (section apparently incomplete)

In Production > Ethylene hydration I find the sentence: "In the U.S., this [C2H4 + H2O → CH3CH2OH catalyzed by phosphoric acid] process was used on an industrial scale by Union Carbide Corporation and others; but now only LyondellBasell uses it commercially." ... but I cannot find what process is currently used by other manufacturers. My interest is in knowing what impurities are likely to be found in industrial ethanol. Possibly other catalysts are currently used, but I was not able to find this information in the article. It would also be nice to indicate if other industrial processes are used outside the U.S. NL Derek (talk) 21:50, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Absolute alcohol and alcoholic beverages (with contradiction)

The article says "Absolute alcohol is not intended for human consumption". But it also says "Absolute ethanol produced this way has no residual benzene, and can be used to fortify port and sherry in traditional winery operations." I see several problems with that. One is that the second quoted sentence contradicts the first. Another is that using absolute alcohol doesn't sound very "traditional", since its purification process and availability for use is presumably quite modern. I also don't really understand what purpose is served by using the word "traditional" in that phrase – what is the distinction it is trying to convey? Is there some class of winery operations that are categorized as non-traditional where different rules apply than in traditional ones? Another issue is that I question whether there is really a need to use extremely high-purity alcohol for this purpose. —BarrelProof (talk) 16:21, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Error: Etymology

The article currently states about the etymology of the name "ethanol" --

The term 'ethyl' is the Anglicised version of the German word äthyl, which was coined in 1838 by Liebig. It was modeled after the related term 'methyl.' Both terms originate from Greek, and share the segment 'yl', which is equivalent to 'hyle' meaning stuff. However, the preceding segment differs – 'eth', is equivalent to 'aither', meaning ether. Thus the word 'ethyl' is a contraction of 'aither hyle'.[5] Liebig used the term 'ethyl alcohol' to distinguish between ethanol and other alcohols.

This paragraph is wrong.

(1) It states that the prefix "ethyl" was coined by German chemist Justus Liebig in 1838. That is wrong: "ethyl" was coined in 1834. Here's the source and the quote:

Liebig (1834) "Ueber die Constitution des Aethers und seiner Verbindungen" (On the constitution of ether and its compounds), Annalen der Pharmacie, 9 : 1-39. From page 18: "Bezeichnen wir die Kohlenwasserstoffverbindung 4C + 10H als das Radikal des Aethers mit E₂ und nennen es Ethyl, …" (Let us designate the hydrocarbon 4C + 10H as the radical of ether with E₂ and name it ethyl …).

(2) It states that the prefix "ethyl" was patterned after the prefix "methyl". This is not possible because the prefix "methyl" was coined by Dumas and Péligot in 1835 — after the prefix "ethyl" was coined in 1834 — as stated in Wikipedia's article "Methyl group". Here is the source and the quote:

J. Dumas and E. Péligot (1835) "Mémoire sur l'espirit de bois et sur les divers composés ethérés qui en proviennent" (Memoir on spirit of wood and on the various ethereal compounds that derive therefrom), Annales de chimie et de physique, 58 : 5-74; from page 9: Nous donnerons le nom de méthylène (1) à un radical … (1) μεθυ, vin, et υλη, bois; c'est-à-dire vin ou liqueur spiritueuse du bois. (We will give the name "methylene" (1) to a radical … (1) methy, wine, and hulē, wood; that is, wine or spirit of wood.)

Cwkmail (talk) 09:03, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

"See also" at the top of the page

Somebody added a "see also" tag at the top of the page. It's inappropriate there; See Also links go at the bottom. But when I try to remove it, it seems to break something; I get a message at Preview saying "Warning: Template include size is too large. Some templates will not be included." So I have not removed it but would appreciate it if someone would. --MelanieN (talk) 16:23, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Effects on metabolism - kcal/g yield, but not a nutrient

I modified the wording of this section to reflect the fact that ethanol is not a nutrient. I wrote that it can be compared to an energy-bearing macronutrient, which I think preserves the tone and function of the sentence. I also added that it yields 6.9 kcal/g, though I don't as yet have a cit. The reason it is not a nutrient is because nutrients have two criteria: Necessary for normal function, and not produced by the body in sufficient quantities to perform that normal function. Providing calories does not make something a nutrient. (By that definition anti-freeze would be a nutrient.) Will look for a cit for 6.9 kcal/g. Dcs002 (talk) 03:07, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Odd, but all sites working in kilojoules say 29 kJ/g of ethanol, which converts to 6.93 kcals, but all sites working in kcals seem to agree on 7 - 7.1 kcal/g. I added a cit for 7 kcal/g and left it there. I know determining these numbers is an imprecise endeavor and the numbers are still being worked out and revised. Dcs002 (talk) 03:40, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Poorly sourced, unencyclopedic material

I suggest that these three subsections in the "Alcohol and digestion" section be deleted in their entirety:

How Breathalyzers work:

Alcohol that is not processed by the liver goes to the heart. The liver can process only a certain amount of alcohol per unit time. Thus, when a person drinks too much alcohol, more alcohol can reach the heart. In the heart, alcohol reduces the force of heart contractions. Consequently, the heart will pump less blood, lowering overall body blood pressure. Also, blood that reaches the heart goes to the lungs to replenish blood's oxygen concentration. It is at this stage that a person can breathe out traces of alcohol. This is the underlying principle of the alcohol breath testing (or breathalyzers) to determine if a driver has been drinking and driving.

From the lungs, blood returns to the heart and will be distributed throughout the body. Interestingly, alcohol increases levels of high-density lipoproteins(HDLs), which carry cholesterol. Alcohol is known to make blood less likely to clot, reducing risk of heart attack and stroke. This could be the reason why alcohol could produce health benefits when consumed in moderate amounts. Also, alcohol dilates blood vessels. Consequently, a person will feel warmer, and their face turns flush and pink.

Why people lose their sense of balance after drinking alcohol:

When alcohol reaches the brain, it has the ability to delay signals that are sent between nerve cells that control balance, thinking and movement.

Why people frequently urinate after drinking alcohol:

Moreover, alcohol can affect the brain's ability to produce antidiuretic hormones. These hormones are responsible for controlling the amount of urine that is produced. Alcohol prevents the body from reabsorbing water, and consequently a person who recently drank alcohol will urinate frequently.

These sections are not encyclopedic in format, and they are sourced to dummies.com (yes, really!), howstuffworks.com, and alcoholrehab.com. Dummies is already tagged as "unreliable source". I suggest we go ahead and delete them unless the information is put into encyclopedic form and reliably sourced. BTW they are not real subsections of "Alcohol and digestion"; they are made to look like subsections through bolding. I suspect all of this was added by the same not-very-competent user. --MelanieN (talk) 03:42, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Density

The density in the table on the right shows it as 0.789 g/ml at 25 C. But Ethanol (data page) tells it is 0.785 g/ml at 25 C.

Iqbalbaig.iitm (talk) 09:07, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

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