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Distilling Ethyl Alcohol From Hand Sanitizer (Absolute Ethanol) | Obtaining Lab Solvents (episode 3)

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Challenge: take a shot every time I say "ethanol"!
Actually, strike that...I said "ethanol" far too many times for that to be safe...ANYWAYS, moving on!
Ethanol (ethyl alcohol) is one of the most common, renewable, and useful lab solvents, and is also an extremely useful chemical precursor and reagent (as well as a fuel). Sadly, younger home experimenters may have a rough time getting it, since it is also the world's most common recreational drug. Fortunately, I may have found a way around this issue...
Hand sanitizer is available for anyone to buy, and it is often over 60% ethyl alcohol. Additionally, many hand sanitizers also include glycerin as an ingredient, which stifles the annoying water-ethanol azeotrope that prevents concentrations over 95% from being reached via distillation. So in today's video, I'll be showing how to obtain basically pure ethanol from an everyday topical disinfectant!
Link to the hand sanitizer I used (only $5 USD):
www.amazon.com...
Want to help this channel grow and product even better videos (and get your name at the end of my videos)? Consider become a LabCoatz patron on Patreon:
/ labcoatz
Warning/disclaimer: you should NOT drink the ethanol obtained from hand sanitizer. Plenty of companies add chemicals that may come over in the distillation and potentially poison you. The alcohol would probably also taste terrible! I take no responsibility for idiots who drink hand sanitizer moonshine and end up regretting it. BE SMART.
This video utilizes footage from NileRed (a fellow chemistry RU-vidr) and "Back to the Future Part III"

Опубликовано:

23 авг 2024

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Комментарии : 43

@tatemcaluney7269 2 года назад

Ahhh... another original and high quality labcoatz video. The world is back to normal 🙌 Good job dude!

@djdrack4681 2 года назад

My local hardware store was just selling 5gal jugs of hand sanitizer for $8/each (down from $90), w/ an ethyl alcohol concent of 80-83%, it was only logical to grab 20-40 gal worth for lab purposes (both sanitizing and -->anhydrous solvent). It has >=3% water, and some level of glycerin, but the non-transparent nature of the SDS leads me to believe there is a small amount of n-octanol and butyl acetate in it. I'll need to read over a few things first before purifying for lab use, but if so, that would be interesting ingredients when most of the time it is just ethyl alcohol, glycerin, and water.

@contomo5710 2 года назад

the way i do it is just reflux it with some NaOH drain cleaner, that usually aldols all the MEK out and tars organic impurities.

@justinbanks2380 2 года назад

US government, yeah you can't get alcohol for chemistry as you're not 21. You could get drunk! Also US government, oh you want to buy a condensing coil? A bunch of this chemical and that chemical? Sure! No problem! 😂

@ericlotze7724 6 месяцев назад

Also some people did *and iirc do still drink* denatured alcohol I’ll need to find the Article, but it went over the history of it all, and short of maybe keeping Kids away it is ineffective and unnecessary. Heck even more dangerous stuff like Bleach or Gasoline are found in most homes and have no “denaturants” Idk about you all, but I wasn’t tempted to eat the hand sanitizer or drink fuel as a kid!

@Enjoymentboy Год назад

This came at a great time. I recently picked up 4 gallon jugs of hand sanitiser for $1.99 gallon from a hardware store clearance. I contacted the company and got the MSDS and it reports it to be 70% ethanol, 25% water with the rest being glycerine and methyl-celluose (in undisclosed percentages). My plan is to distil it out and use the ethanol as camping fuel for my alcohol stove. Every time I drive by the store I am so tempted to head in an pick up more jugs of the stuff but I'm sure that will put me on some list, not to mention I really don't have anywhere to store this stuff.

@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 Год назад

You're not going to get put on a list for buying hand sanitizer

@Enjoymentboy Год назад

@@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 When you have a trudeau running things anything is possible. lol

@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 Год назад

@@Enjoymentboy yeah, I didn't fully realize how bad Canada was getting until I left last year. I'm 44 and it's unrecognizable as the country I grew up in, it's really sad.

@FerociousPancake888 Год назад

The hand sanitizer I bought last year was in such short supply I had to buy it in bulk just to get it so I’ll definitely be doing this. I’m never going to use all of it myself.

@quanticthinking1517 2 года назад

yeah thats actually really nice to know, ive never thought glycerine could be so useful in that case. have you tried using IR thermometer on glassware? always broke my glass thermometeds. Add a bit of black tape at the measuring points no confinement to just 1 place

@LabCoatz_Science 2 года назад

I've always just used my digital thermometer probe, but an IR thermometer might be a good thing to have as well!

@pranavramesh4888 2 года назад

Nail polish remover also contains ethanol right?

@netroy 2 года назад

nail polish removers are mostly acetone.

@LabCoatz_Science 2 года назад

@@netroy True! I have seen some brands for sale that are mostly ethyl acetate though, so in theory, you could get ethanol if you reacted the ethyl acetate with sodium hydroxide.

@Magolote 2 месяца назад

Did you get about 150 ml from that 500 ml bottle? If that’s the case, then for me, it’s cheaper to distill it from Vodka or any other liquor. If I were under age, I’d ask an uncle to buy it for me.

@All_Science 2 года назад

Noooo!!! Why did you use the graham condenser horizontally????

@LabCoatz_Science 2 года назад

A. It's my only condenser and I don't have the parts to set it up vertically B. I like to torture people 😁

@DUKE_of_RAMBLE Год назад

Commenting on order to appease the algorithm gods...

@user-bt5cj9hv1h 2 месяца назад

is that safe enough to drink ?

@RiehlScience 9 месяцев назад

Great video, but I don’t think your ethanol is any where near anhydrous. You need to do a density test. I bought some 80% hand sanitizer and after several distillations and repeated drying with anhydrous magnesium sulfate, I managed to get it to a little over 90%. The first simple distillation only produced 85%. You just have to do a fractional distillation. You mention that the glycerin helps to sequester water, but there’s not nearly enough of it.

@jefwesb Год назад

Hand sanitizer just dropped crazy in price. I can get 50 fl.oz of 85% ethyl based sanitizer for 2$. I tried using it for my alcohol stove when camping, but it left a lot of residue in the stove. I might try to purify it like you did. Do you have any tips on how to DIY this without the expensive chemistry glassware?

@LabCoatz_Science Год назад

You could try using glass bottles like Nighthawkinlight did here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-R_-wFiFdwAE.html I tried this a long time ago with fuming nitric acid, and it worked great! Just don't heat the bottles directly (aka without a sand/oil/boiling water bath), otherwise they might break from heat stress.

@firstmkb Год назад

You could also use copper tubing as an air condenser, like what moonshiners use. The vessel doesn’t need to be copper, but heat indirectly as LabCoatz suggested. With the price of copper, you might be able to use some kind of plastic if you don’t overheat it.

@okaraaze1087 9 месяцев назад

Ive seen hand sanitiser marked as containing "denatured alcohol" can this still be done?

@LabCoatz_Science 8 месяцев назад

You could distill the alcohol, but it would most likely still be denatured if it contains methanol or isopropanol (honestly usable for most reactions as a solvent). However, if the denaturant is something solid like denatonium benzoate, you probably would be able to separate it from the ethanol. It really depends on the brand. The brand I used just had ethanol, peroxide, and glycerin (and water ofc), so I was able to isolate the ethanol with relative ease.

@tymiller9714 3 месяца назад

I used to distill whiskey with a lil 5 gal pot still

@morareduard 2 года назад

Any update on the chloroform to dcm conversion?

@LabCoatz_Science 2 года назад

It was a failure, lol. Honestly, to get it to work, you'd probably need an exotic catalyst (maybe palladium?), but there is far too little documentation to tell. I might try again in the future, but if I still fail, I'll simply post the results and ask for insight from my audience. I'm thinking I might try chlorinating methane or chloromethane to get DCM, but we'll see.

@djjoeray Год назад

@@LabCoatz_Science Can you not get DCM paint stripper where you are?

@LabCoatz_Science Год назад

@@djjoeray Nope, DCM has been almost entirely phased out in the USA (except in certain plastic welding liquids).

@firstmkb Год назад

It is available from some chemical supply houses, but they probably keep lists.

@gtgodbear6320 11 месяцев назад

Darn. I just got six 1 gallon bottles of hand sanitizer for free. 24 Purell dispenser bottles and 24 alcohol spray bottles. I guess I'll just use it for cleaning purposes.

@Arhocks Год назад

I just wonder, will i be able to do the same with a hand sanitizer that is just made up of ethonol and propane 2? Can i boil it to extract just the ethanol from it? or do it have te be no propane 2 in it?

@LabCoatz_Science Год назад

I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure the ethanol and 2-propanol form an inseparable azeotrope. And even if they don't, 2-propanol does with water, which could limiting its purity to ~85%.

@Arhocks Год назад

@@LabCoatz_Science srry, didn't fully understand, 2-propan does what with water?

@LabCoatz_Science Год назад

@@Arhocks It forms an azeotrope, so if the water content is more than 15%, the 2-propanol can't be concentrated above ~85% by distillation.

@viagra5207 2 года назад

here from coil labs

@LabCoatz_Science 2 года назад

Welcome to the insanity

@MybumIsaching Год назад

I drank it loll am I gonna die

@heyguysiguessthatsit438 Год назад

I think the hand sanitizer company thingies know people will drink it so they can't put super toxic stuff in it to stop people from drinking because a ton would die