How to Make Denatured Alcohol

Deantured alcohol is alcohol which has some additive that makes it not suitable for human consumption. Alcohol often needs to be denatured to comply with federal health regulations so that it can be used for legitimate purposes. It cannot be converted into a consumable form. Denatured alcohol is commonly used as fuel for camping stoves and other industrial purposes. Common ways of denaturing alcohol include adding methanol (which is toxic) or other additives, such as phenolphthalein (which is a powerful laxative).

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Ethanol
• Graduated cylinder or flask (optional)
• Methanol
• Phenolphthalein (optional)

1. Obtain an amount of pure ethanol. This can be purchased from chemical supply companies or from a hardware store.

2. Measure the volume. In general, this information will be printed on the label of the ethanol. Otherwise, you will need to measure it yourself, using a graduated cylinder or flask.

3. Divide the volume of ethanol by ten. This is the amount of methanol you will need to add to make the ethanol "denatured."

4. Add this amount of methanol. Methanol can be purchased from chemical supply companies. It can be measured using a graduated cylinder or flask. Because the amount of methanol does not need to be exactly one-tenth of the total volume, this measurement does not need to be exact.

Tips & Warnings

• As an optional additional step, adding phenolphthalein to an ethanol solution can also make it denatured. For this method of denaturing, 1 drop of phenolphthalein per ten liters of ethanol is sufficient. Because phenolphthalein is often used for chemical experiments to measure acidity, it can also be purchased from chemical supply companies.

References

• Denatured Alcohol Regulations