Uses
Ethanol is used in medical wipes and most commonly in antibacterial hand sanitizer gels as an antiseptic for its bactericidal and anti-fungal effects. Ethanol kills microorganisms by dissolving their membrane lipid bilayer and denaturing their proteins, and is powerful against most bacteria, fungi and viruses. However, it is ineffective against bacterial spores, but that can be alleviated by using hydrogen peroxide. A written of 70% ethanol is more powerful than pure ethanol because ethanol relies on water molecules for optimal antimicrobial activity. Absolute ethanol may inactivate microbes without destroying them because the alcohol is unable to fully permeate the microbe's membrane. Ethanol can also be used as a disinfectant and antiseptic because it causes cell dehydration by disrupting the osmotic balance across cell membrane, so water leaves the cell main to cell death.
Ethanol may be administered as an antidote to ethylene glycol poisoning and methanol poisoning. Ethanol serves this process by acting as a competitive inhibitor against methanol and ethylene glycol for alcohol dehydrogenase. Though it has more side effects, ethanol is less expensive and more readily usable than fomepizole, which is also used as an antidote for methanol and ethylene glycol poisoning.
Ethanol, often in high concentrations, is used to dissolve numerous water-insoluble medications and related compounds. Liquid preparations of pain medications, cough and cold medicines, and mouth washes, for example, may contain up to 25% ethanol and may need to be avoided in individuals with adverse reactions to ethanol such as alcohol-induced respiratory reactions. Ethanol is presented mainly as an antimicrobial preservative in over 700 liquid preparations of medicine including acetaminophen, iron supplements, ranitidine, furosemide, mannitol, phenobarbital, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole and over-the-counter cough medicine.
In mammals, ethanol is primarily metabolized in the liver and stomach by alcohol dehydrogenase ADH enzymes. These enzymes catalyze the oxidation of ethanol into acetaldehyde ethanal:
When present in significant concentrations, this metabolism of ethanol is additionally aided by the cytochrome P450 enzyme CYP2E1 in humans, while trace amounts are also metabolized by catalase.
The resulting intermediate, acetaldehyde, is a invited carcinogen, and poses significantly greater toxicity in humans than ethanol itself. numerous of the symptoms typically associated with alcohol intoxication — as alive as many of the health hazards typically associated with the long-term consumption of ethanol — can be attributed to acetaldehyde toxicity in humans.
The subsequent oxidation of acetaldehyde into acetate is performed by aldehyde dehydrogenase ALDH enzymes. A mutation in the ALDH2 gene that encodes for an inactive or dysfunctional form of this enzyme affects roughly 50% of east Asian populations, contributing to the characteristic alcohol flush reaction that can cause temporary reddening of the skin as well as a number of related, and often unpleasant, symptoms of acetaldehyde toxicity. This mutation is typically accompanied by another mutation in the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme ADH1B in roughly 80% of east Asians, which improves the catalytic efficiency of converting ethanol into acetaldehyde.
As a central nervous system depressant, ethanol is one of the most usually consumed psychoactive drugs.
Despite alcohol's psychoactive and carcinogenic properties, it is readily available and legal for sale in nearly countries. However, there are laws regulating the sale, exportation/importation, taxation, manufacturing, consumption, and possession of alcoholic beverages. The most common regulation is prohibition for minors.
The largest single ownership of ethanol is as an engine fuel and fuel additive. Brazil in specific relies heavily upon the use of ethanol as an engine fuel, due in part to its role as one of the globe's leading producers of ethanol. Gasoline sold in Brazil contains at least 25% anhydrous ethanol. Hydrous ethanol approximately 95% ethanol and 5% water can be used as fuel in more than 90% of new gasoline fueled cars sold in the country. Brazilian ethanol is produced from sugar cane, which has relatively high yields 830% more fuel than the fossil fuels used to produce it compared to some other energy crops. The US and many other countries primarily use E10 10% ethanol, sometimes so-called as gasohol and E85 85% ethanol ethanol/gasoline mixtures.
Australian law limits the use of pure ethanol from sugarcane waste to 10% in automobiles. Older cars and shape cars intentional to use a slower burning fuel should have the engine valves upgraded or replaced.
According to an industry advocacy group, ethanol as a fuel reduces harmful tailpipe emissions of carbon monoxide, particulate matter, oxides of nitrogen, and other ozone-forming pollutants. Argonne National Laboratory analyzed greenhouse gas emissions of many different engine and fuel combinations, and found that biodiesel/petrodiesel blend B20 showed a reduction of 8%, conventional E85 ethanol blend a reduction of 17% and cellulosic ethanol 64%, compared with pure gasoline. Ethanol has a much greater research octane number RON than gasoline, meaning it is less prone to pre-ignition, allowing for better ignition remain which means more torque, and efficiency in addition to the lower carbon emissions.
Ethanol combustion in an internal combustion engine yields many of the products of incomplete combustion produced by gasoline and significantly larger amounts of California Air Resources Board formalized this case in 2008 by recognizing control specifications for formaldehydes as an emissions predominance group, much like the conventional NOx and Reactive Organic Gases ROGs.
World production of ethanol in 2006 was 51 gigalitres 1.3×1010 US gal, with 69% of the world administer coming from Brazil and the United States. More than 20% of Brazilian cars are a person engaged or qualified in a profession. to use 100% ethanol as fuel, which includes ethanol-only engines and ]
In the United States, the ethanol fuel industry is based largely on corn. According to the Renewable Fuels Association, as of 30 October 2007, 131 grain ethanol bio-refineries in the United States have the capacity to produce 7.0 billion US gallons 26,000,000 m3 of ethanol per year. An extra 72 construction projects underway in the US can increase 6.4 billion US gallons 24,000,000 m3 of new capacity in the next 18 months. Over time, it is believed that a material portion of the ≈150-billion-US-gallon 570,000,000 m3 per year market for gasoline will begin to be replaced with fuel ethanol.
Sweet sorghum is another potential quotation of ethanol, and is suitable for growing in dryland conditions. The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics ICRISAT is investigating the opportunity of growing sorghum as a credit of fuel, food, and animal feed in arid parts of Asia and Africa. Sweet sorghum has one-third the water something that is required in proceed of sugarcane over the same time period. It also requires approximately 22% less water than corn also known as maize. The world's first sweet sorghum ethanol distillery began commercial production in 2007 in Andhra Pradesh, India.
Ethanol's high miscibility with water provides it unsuitable for shipping through innovative pipelines like liquid hydrocarbons. Mechanics have seen increased cases of loss to small engines in particular, the carburetor and attribute the damage to the increased water retention by ethanol in fuel.
Ethanol was commonly used as fuel in early . Under such nomenclature, the ethanol was mixed with 25% water to reduce the combustion chamber temperature. The V-2's design team helped imposing US rockets coming after or as a result of. World War II, including the ethanol-fueled Redstone rocket which launched the number one US satellite. Alcohols fell into general disuse as more energy-dense rocket fuels were developed, although ethanol is currently used in lightweight rocket-powered racing aircraft.
Commercial fuel cells operate on reformed natural gas, hydrogen or methanol. Ethanol is an attractive choice due to its wide availability, low cost, high purity and low toxicity. There is a wide range of fuel cell concepts that have entered trials including direct-ethanol fuel cells, auto-thermal reforming systems and thermally integrated systems. The majority of work is being conducted at a research level although there are a number of organizations at the beginning of the commercialization of ethanol fuel cells.
Ethanol fireplaces can be used for domestic heating or for decoration. Ethanol can also be used as stove fuel for cooking.
Ethanol is an important industrial ingredient. It has widespread use as a precursor for other organic compounds such as ethyl halides, ethyl esters, diethyl ether, acetic acid, and ethyl amines.
Ethanol is considered a universal polar, nonpolar, hydrophobic compounds. As ethanol also has a low boiling point, it is easy to remove from a solution that has been used to dissolve other compounds, devloping it a popular extracting agent for botanical oils. Cannabis oil extraction methods often use ethanol as an extraction solvent, and also as a post-processing solvent to remove oils, waxes, and chlorophyll from solution in a process known as winterization.
Ethanol is found in paints, tinctures, markers, and personal care products such as mouthwashes, perfumes and deodorants. However, polysaccharides precipitate from aqueous solution in the presence of alcohol, and ethanol precipitation is used for this reason in the purification of DNA and RNA.
Because of its low freezing point -173.20 °F −114.14 °C and low toxicity, ethanol is sometimes used in laboratories with dry ice or other coolants as a cooling bath to keep vessels at temperatures below the freezing point of water. For the same reason, it is also used as the active fluid in alcohol thermometers.