How to detect methanol in an alcoholic drink at home
There are more and more cases when people are poisoned by alcoholic drinks that contain toxic methanol instead of ethyl alcohol. But there are ways to identify the deadly substance and they do not require laboratory equipment and a scientific degree in chemistry. We offer 6 reliable ways to detect methanol at home.
Methyl alcohol poisoning is a common occurrence. Methanol is almost identical in taste and smell to ethanol, and even an experienced person cannot detect it in flavored drinks. Chemist Evgeny Kuznetsov explained how you can identify toxic alcohol in any alcoholic drink at home using improvised means. You can use "reagents" that are probably in every kitchen and home medicine cabinet.
The easiest way is to set fire to the alcohol. Ethyl alcohol will burn with a blue flame, while methyl alcohol will burn with a green flame. However, this method is only suitable for strong drinks with a high alcohol content or for pure alcohol. It will not be possible to determine the poison in wine, cider or liqueur this way.
You can drop an alcoholic drink on the cut of a regular potato. Ethanol will color it pink, but methanol will not change anything. Yes, if the potato does not change color, this does not mean that it is edible. After the experiment, the root vegetable should be thrown away immediately.
You can add a teaspoon of soda to a glass of alcohol. In pure ethanol, the substance will fall to the bottom as a yellow sediment. But methanol will dissolve it without a trace.
When interacting with potassium permanganate (manganese), methanol vigorously releases carbon dioxide. The liquid turns brown and bubbles. If you add potassium permanganate to ethyl alcohol, nothing extraordinary will happen. It will simply turn pink, as happens with water.
If you heat a pure copper wire and dip it into ethyl alcohol, it will smell like an apple. The same action, but with methyl alcohol will cause the release of an unpleasant chemical smell.
You can tell ethanol from methanol by their boiling point. The poisonous alcohol boils earlier than the food alcohol, at only 64 degrees Celsius. Ethylene needs to be heated to 78 degrees to boil.
But the surest way to preserve life and health is to give up alcohol altogether. Especially since alcoholism is an insidious disease and creeps up unnoticed. The fact that a person is an alcoholic is eloquently indicated by 9 signs.