Denatured Alchohol

imported
#1

Hi,

Thought I was gonna be able to kill two birds with one stone by carrying denatured alchohol as fuel, and also using it as an antiseptic if I got a cut*.

*HOWEVER, I found out that denatured alchohol is actually toxic. The “denaturing” process involves adding benzene to get rid of the water content of “un-denatured” alchohol (the stuff in liquor). Since its toxic to ingest, I figure it would not be a good thing to poor on an open wound.

Also, both denatured and un-denatured alchohol are molecularly different than rubbing/isopropal alchohol. (I got all of this info at: http://www.antigravitygear.com/denatured_alcohol.html)

Thought I should share this in case anyone else came up with the same bright idea I did.

P.S. If this is already common knowledge that I should have learned in 6th-grade science class, I…uhhh… was…uhh…out sick that day. Yeah, out sick that day, thats the ticket!

BooBoo

#2

Hmmmm so much that idea i was thinking 3 bird, cooking, cuts and drinking…You know you can use vodka instead. With vodka you can cook with it (makes ok fuel or way to start a fire), disinfect your cuts (just dont use flavored vodka), and at last resort when its all just to much for you to handle you can drink it. :cheers

Digital Ranger

#3

I’m not a doctor (HS dropout actually :wink: ) Just thought I’d point out that a toxic compound can be a disenfectant. Drinking iodine, hydrogen peroxide, or isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol will mess you up just as bad as denatured alcohol (maybe worse,) yet they’re some of the most common generic antiseptics out there.

                              -S-

Skittles

#4

Ethylalcohol you can drink ie “everclear” you can find it in liquor stores its 190proof or 99% pure grain alcohol, drink it use it in the stove, may help getting a fire going, but if you need it for that you don’t know how to start a fire, good antiseptic. Methylalcohol will kill you or atleast wipe out a good portion of your liver, and maybe blind you! Ethyl is nice, methyl is bad. But check for yourself, search the web for “Material Safety Data Sheets” it will tell you toxicity, lethal doses, and flash points for you would be fire starters out there!

Bona fortuna!

griff

#5

BooBoo,

You were right to be wary of using denatured alcohol as an antiseptic, but it can be tricky to figure out why.

Denatured alcohol is ethanol, to which poisonous and foul-tasting chemicals have been added to make it unfit for drinking. There is more than one recipe for denaturing alcohol; some add methanol or isopropanol, some
gasoline, and so on.

Rubbing alcohol is an alcohol intended to be rubbed on the skin. Frequently 70% iso-propyl alcohol / 30% water is used; sometimes ethanol with added iso-propyl alcohol is used.

You DO NOT want to use denatured alcohol on your skin or cuts that is made with anything that, on its own, shouldn’t be placed on the skin, such as gasoline!

So, some, but not all, kinds of denatured alcohol can be used as rubbing alcohol. Rubbing alcohol may also not contain any ethanol at all, which would disqualify it from being “denatured”. So, some but not all kinds of rubbing alcohol are denatured alcohol, and some but not all kinds of denatured alcohol can be rubbing alcohol.

Don’t drink either of them!

Skittles,

Make sure you know what you are talking about before offering answers or information to questions people have about the safe use or non-use of a potentially harmful substance. Just because something that is safe to use as an antiseptic will make you very sick if you drink it doesn’t mean that everything you drink that makes you very sick is safe to use as an antiseptic (eg. denatured alcohol).

You only followed part way through with your logic, much like you did with your academic endeavors. Both of which are fine, but not when giving advice that could affect someone’s health.

Sherry

#6

What? Sherry, how bad it is to use standard denatured alcohol (ca. 5% methanol 95 % ethanol) as a disinfectant?

  1. As a chemical engineer, I have not seen benzene in denatured alcohol in 25 years. I’m sure benzene is long extinct. Interesting that the newest trend in backpacking has such and out of date legend associated with it.
  2. Denatured alcohol is mostly ethanol, because all other alcohols are poisonous and do not need “denaturing”.
  3. I would not use anything on my body without reading the label. I’m not very comfortable with methanol because it is such a small molecule compared to isopropanol. However, the concentration is usually relitively low. So maybe Sherry will tell us it is OK in an emergancy.
  4. Standard rubbing alcohol has way too much water to use in a stove except for a real emergancy. (Assume about 50 % efficient.) Anhydrous isopropanol is not very common and is slightly less volitile, so it might take some stove modifications (a tuna can stove?) to get the same heat in cold weather. So, isopropanol is not the way to go for double duty fuel /1st aid.
  5. Water, anticeptic pad, and topical antibiotic do not add that much weight. That is what I would recommend.

Ambler Rambler

#7

Sherry,
“Make sure you know what you are talking about before offering answers or information”

Actually, I do know what I’m talking about. The information I posted is fairly obvious and easily verifiable. I made a simple statement: “a toxic compound can be a disenfectant” and backed it up with a few handy examples. The two implications there are that “toxic” means “toxic when ingested” and that “disenfectant” means “topical disinfectant” (sorry about the spelling error.) The whole point of mentioning that I’m not a doctor (and the HS dropout part, which was more for humor value) was to emphasize the fact that I’m not suggesting denatured alcohol is safe to use as a disinfectant (or anything else for that matter.) Also, your assumption that I have only followed partway through with academic endeavors is more than a little bit incorrect, but this is not the place to discuss that.

BooBoo,
If you want first aid supplies, I’d recommend taking real first aid supplies. There are a few (relatively) safe fuel/disinfectant options, but they’re very expensive, hard to get in trail towns, and illegal/expensive to maildrop.

Later!

-S-

Skittles

#8

As mentioned earlier - drop 3 birds with one stone - 150-proof Rum or 190-proof Everclear will burn hot and mix well with lemonade or any other drink mix.

If you use rubbing alcohol, I’ve heard to look for the highest percentage of alcohol in the bottle - not sure if this is accurate, or not.

Brutus