From: MV (MV@dc9.tzo.com)
Date: Sun Oct 02 2005 - 15:43:12 PDT
Unless I'm mistaken, the only way you can blind or kill yourself with
methanol is to drink it. Methanol is poisonous whereas non-denatured
ethanol can be non poisonous. Of course if you drink too much ethanol
even if it is not denatured (aka spirits) you can still die of alcohol
poisoning. That's how college kids still manage to kill themselves
periodically by chugging liquor.
The lesson here is that unless it is in a bottle and comes from a
distillery that makes beverage grade alcohol, don't even think of
drinking it! Making beverage grade alcohol is really an art and a
science. I do a fair amount of work at one of the bigger distilleries
in the US.
Dave
Ryan Gill wrote:
> At 9:39 AM -0700 10/2/05, Darrell Ramsell wrote:
>
>> Hi Dick
>>
>> You reminded me of a question I wanted to ask earlier on this topic.
>>
>> I'm not a chemist, so I was wondering if anyone can tell me what is
>> the function of Lye and methanol when added to oil?
>
>
> The Waste Vegetable oils are triglycerides. The Lye and Methanol are
> there to crack the glycerine out of the WVO. This is called
> transesterification, it substitutes alcohol for the glycerine in a
> reaction, the lye is a catalyst. You can use Ethanol, but the process is
> trickier and more complex. The critical thing with using the Methanol is
> that you don't blind/kill yourself with it.
>
> These guys have a very very good set of write ups.
> http://journeytoforever.org/
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