Refluxing columns for producing 190 proof ethanol

Hi ya'll, a follow up to my article on producing ethanol from scratch, demonstrating the easy way to 95% 190 proof purity.

Mine is a traditional copper

I am assuming you didn't deliberately kink that coil ?

Herb & Suds said:

Mine is a traditional copper

I am assuming you didn't deliberately kink that coil ?

Click to expand...

No, I was used to working with stainless tubing and tried to tighten the coil spiral at the top. I would just cut it off, but it isn't seriously kinked and it's a test sled, not a product.

The radiator actually does a good job by itself and even works with the fan off.

The 50' coil in an ice bath works well too, but goes through a lot of ice.

lol, took a peek, wife would absolutely kill me.

I considered distillation to recover isopropanol but concluded that it just wasn't worth it, a whole lot easier just to keep buying it fresh. As this thread says, you would need a column type distillation rig to get high ethanol content, a water purifier distillation unit will only get the concentration up to about 60%. Distillation columns are costly and pretty complicated, why the hell bother?

I tried using ethanol as a solvent before, sold under the name e-NRG Bioethanol fireplace fuel, which is 92% ethanol and 8% isopropanol, I didn't find it worked as well. It's a lot cheaper than buying ethanol in the form of liquor though. Isopropanol has lower polarity, so extracts less secondary compounds. I don't know why anyone would use ethanol instead of Iso, unless it was for making a tincture, where the alcohol would actually be consumed. Of course consuming any alcohol is a bad idea, considering they're all quite toxic and definitely not a food item. Yeah, the liver can metabolize it, but the metabolites are toxic, like acetaldehyde. The simple fact that you get a "hangover" proves how toxic the metabolites are.

The most practical way to go, for making extracts and not tinctures, is just buy 500 ml bottles of 99% pharmaceutical grade iso in a pharmacy. When done the way I do it, extracting a pound of material only requires 4 bottles, that's like $20. To me, it's worth $20 per pound to make things simple, cheap and practical, plus get excellent results. Screw around if you want, but personally, I'll stick to the easy way.

BobCajun said:

I considered distillation to recover isopropanol but concluded that it just wasn't worth it, a whole lot easier just to keep buying it fresh. As this thread says, you would need a column type distillation rig to get high ethanol content, a water purifier distillation unit will only get the concentration up to about 60%. Distillation columns are costly and pretty complicated, why the hell bother?

I tried using ethanol as a solvent before, sold under the name e-NRG Bioethanol fireplace fuel, which is 92% ethanol and 8% isopropanol, I didn't find it worked as well. It's a lot cheaper than buying ethanol in the form of liquor though. Isopropanol has lower polarity, so extracts less secondary compounds. I don't know why anyone would use ethanol instead of Iso, unless it was for making a tincture, where the alcohol would actually be consumed. Of course consuming any alcohol is a bad idea, considering they're all quite toxic and definitely not a food item. Yeah, the liver can metabolize it, but the metabolites are toxic, like acetaldehyde. The simple fact that you get a "hangover" proves how toxic the metabolites are.

The most practical way to go, for making extracts and not tinctures, is just buy 500 ml bottles of 99% pharmaceutical grade iso in a pharmacy. When done the way I do it, extracting a pound of material only requires 4 bottles, that's like $20. To me, it's worth $20 per pound to make things simple, cheap and practical, plus get excellent results. Screw around if you want, but personally, I'll stick to the easy way.

Click to expand...

From my perspective, they are both good tools in our tool box and Isopropyl is cheap enough to just evaporate away instead of recovering. It is also more readily available that 190 proof ethanol in some locations.

As you note, it is also cheap enough for use denaturing ethanol, so as to make it unsuitable for drinking. I say unsuitable instead of undrinkable because serious alcoholics still drink it, at the expense of their central nervous systems, livers, and auditory nerves

FDA considers both Isopropanol and Ethanol Class 3 solvents and state:

Solvents in Class 3 (Table 3) may be regarded as less toxic and of lower risk to human health. Class 3 includes no solvent known as a human health hazard at levels normally accepted in pharmaceuticals. However, there are no long-term toxicity or carcinogenicity studies for many of the solvents in Class 3. Available data indicate that they are less toxic in acute or short-term studies and negative in genotoxicity studies. It is considered that amounts of these residual solvents of 50 mg per day or less (corresponding to 5,000 ppm or 0.5 percent under Option 1) would be acceptable without justification. Higher amounts may also be acceptable provided they are realistic in relation to manufacturing capability and good manufacturing practice (GMP).

As long as you stay within the residual limits you are ostensibly safe. We know from practical experience however that the limits on ethanol don't reflect the reality of it also being a food product present in liquor. 50 mg per day is about 1.4 oz.

It is unlikely that you will reach the equivalent of 1.4 oz of residual isopropanol (Propanol 2) in concentrates, soooo why aren't the large cart extractors using isopropyl instead of denatured ethanol and the answer is they aren't paying liquor taxes, plus they can recycle ethanol without danger of forming the explosive peroxides Isopropanol can.

Recycle makes it more competitive than isopropyl from a utility at the margin standpoint and less polluting.

I've learned that perspective is greatly influenced by circumstance and one of the best parts is that where no alcohol is available, I've made my own 190 proof ethanol from corn sugar and yeast for about $8/L, which is cheaper than 99% Iso around these parts.

You are spot on that a simple pot still only gets you just over half way there with ethanol on the first pass, but a 2" X 60" sanitary spool stuffed full of stainless pot scrubbers is purdy simple and with spool, scrubbers, insulation, added gasket and clamp is under $150.