Ethyl Rubbing Alcohol 70%

[Paul1453]

Has anyone tried to clean up rubbing alcohol in their reflux still. At $1.19 for 16ozs or 473ml one would get about 12 ozs of 95%. Other listed Inactive ingredients: acetone, denatonium benzoate, methyl isobutyl ketone, water. Listed other information: "Will produce serious gastric disturbances if taken internally". I have heard stories of bums drinking "Rub a Dub" by filtering rubbing alcohol through a loaf of bread. Don't know if these stories are true, but they are easy to believe some drunks have tried this before.

Would a good reflux still be able to separate the good ethyl alcohol from the other serious gastric disturbing ingredients?

[Braz]

NO! NO! NO!

Don't even think about trying it. It won't work and you'll end up very sick - or dead.

[Dnderhead]

ABSALUTLY NOT, that is where all the hype about "moon shine will make you go blind"
came from.during the prohibition it was added to "bath tub gin" and such.as alcohol
to drink was against the law. so people brought anything they could to parties,card games
before this time you could buy ethanol right out of store,the government unknown to
the people started adding chemicals,"to save the people" but instead of saving them it
killed them and caused many disabilities.
>>>>>>>>>THERE IS NO WAY OF REMOVEING THESE CEMICALS<<<<<<<<<<

[Paul1453]

OK guys,

Looking for a little more enlightened answer than these "You'll go blind" scare type answers. So, I did some more research myself.

Let's rationally look at what these other inactive ingredients are:
Water - No problem there.
denatonium benzoate - a bittering agent. It wont kill you but you won't want to drink anything with even a few ppm of this shit.
Now the real problem additions:
acetone, and methyl isobutyl ketone.
Checking the MSDS's for these gives a clue to the real dangers.
Both of these have very low flashpoints, like 57 and 70 F.
MIBK mixed with Oxygen has explosive dangers.

SO, I've come to my own conclusion that one is very likely to turn their still into a bomb by putting this shit into it and heating it up.

Governments know idiots will still try to drink this . They have made laws on specific chemicals that must be used to denature rubbing alcohol. Seems like they have chosen ones that will not kill but severely sicken people stupid enough to just drink the stuff the way it is.
But it looks to me like they have chosen additions specifically designed to explode and kill anyone who thinks they can just clean it up using their home still. Evil bastards.

I now know why I won't be putting this in any of my stills.

[rubber duck]

What your talking about doing is making torpedo juice. Back in the days when the Navy ran torpedoes on alcohol sailors would take the denatured alcohol and try to clean it up doing just what your talking about. It didn't work all that well as the Navy lost a lot of sailors. It was not talked about much, mostly it was covered up but it was such a problem the Navy stopped putting methanol in the alcohol and replaced it with some kind of oil that would make a guy very sick.

Methanol can't be adequately separated from denatured alcohol, the boiling points are to close and there's to much of it.

The reason you don't hear of anyone doing this is that there all dead or blind. Doing this will kill you. Maybe not the first time but eventually you will get a high enough concentration and you will be getting a new dog.

[Paul1453]

There is no Methanol in this rubbing alcohol. See the listed ingredients. There is methanol in most of our washes, especially fruit washes, but we separate that out reasonably easy because of the different boiling points. The acetone and MIBK represent a greater danger, in my opinion, because of the explosion risk. Can you imagine the devastating explosion your pressurized with flammable liquid still would create?

[Husker]