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So how do I get all the water out of Everclear?

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Pure alcohol evaporates quickly. Thats why its mixed with water.
Yur gonna need a science lab inside a refrigerator.

Or just give up on your nonsense.
 
You just uh, boil it. that's how it works!

collect pure alcohol drops in a suspended watch glass above your boiling apparatus.
 
shortylickens said:
Pure alcohol evaporates quickly. Thats why its mixed with water.
Yur gonna need a science lab inside a refrigerator.

Or just give up on your nonsense.
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just the opposite: it actually absorbs free water vapor in the surrounding air. For "critical" applications (lol--they never are), we have to re-aliquot our 100% EtOH supply in the molecular lab because as soon as you open the damn lid, you assume the EtOH is now roughly ~98% and eventually gets down to 95% with repeated opening and closing.
 
I've used activated alumina to remove water from distilled solvent, but I don't know if using alumina would be suitable for anything potable or not.
 
OK, I just realized that OP claimed that he wants to "purify" his 95% methanol. ...I seemed to have walked over something very important here.

I have changed my advice. OP: whether or not it's 5%, 20%, 30%, 95% or 100% methanol, it is going to have the same effect on you. I would suggest that you test it out, but then I would get banned for wishing death on a member.
 
norseamd said:
Wait, how does this work?
Click to expand...

Pure ethanol absorbs every little bit of ambient water that it can find. Simply exposing it to air will suck in any available moisture from the immediate environment, and it happens very quickly.

We tend to keep "100%" in small aliquots (15-40ml) so that it can be regularly replaced and so that it limits exposure time. Either way, you just assume that it is actually somewhere between 95%-98%
 
zinfamous said:
OK, I just realized that OP claimed that he wants to "purify" his 95% methanol. ...I seemed to have walked over something very important here.

I have changed my advice. OP: whether or not it's 5%, 20%, 30%, 95% or 100% methanol, it is going to have the same effect on you. I would suggest that you test it out, but then I would get banned for wishing death on a member.
Click to expand...

Technically, it's not wishing death, it's science.

I'll allow it.
 
zinfamous said:
OK, I just realized that OP claimed that he wants to "purify" his 95% methanol. ...I seemed to have walked over something very important here.

I have changed my advice. OP: whether or not it's 5%, 20%, 30%, 95% or 100% methanol, it is going to have the same effect on you. I would suggest that you test it out, but then I would get banned for wishing death on a member.
Click to expand...

Well he might not die.

He might just go blind. Or mad... well madder anyway.

One of the treatments for methanol ingestion is whisky, which is cool.
 
WelshBloke said:
Well he might not die.

He might just go blind. Or mad... well madder anyway.

One of the treatments for methanol ingestion is whisky, which is cool.
Click to expand...

even better: an EtOH IV drip, which is how the ER would handle it.

...okay, well whiskey is probably more pleasant, but I'm not sure if it's as effective. 😀
 
WelshBloke said:
At home? You can't, and even if you could it would just absorb water vapour from the air.
Click to expand...

This. I used to work in a liquor bottling plant. We used to have to test the nominally 200 proof grain alcohol when it came in, it was never 200-usually around 195.

BTW, OP you DON'T want pure alcohol, believe me. I smuggled out a few gallons of pure alcohol, had a wild party at my dorm and only went through part of one gallon. But from hangovers the next day (universally reported as worst-ever, rather be dead) we went through a lot of brain cells. Everclear is more than strong enough-there are a lot of states where it can't be sold.
 
Thump553 said:
This. I used to work in a liquor bottling plant. We used to have to test the nominally 200 proof grain alcohol when it came in, it was never 200-usually around 195.

BTW, OP you DON'T want pure alcohol, believe me. I smuggled out a few gallons of pure alcohol, had a wild party at my dorm and only went through part of one gallon. But from hangovers the next day (universally reported as worst-ever, rather be dead) we went through a lot of brain cells. Everclear is more than strong enough-there are a lot of states where it can't be sold.
Click to expand...

This is why we avoid hiring undergrads in the lab.
 
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