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Mixing of alcohols

Posted by Anonymous on Mon, 2016-07-11 15:52

Mixing of alcohols: an IB student would like to investigate the effect in heat energy of mixing methanol and ethanol or ethanol or propanol or ethanol and butanol, is this safe? I read SDS and it doesnt provide any information regarding this query. Hope you can help. Many thanks

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Year Level: 10 Senior Secondary Laboratory Technicians: Laboratory Technicians

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Mixing of alcohols

Submitted by sat on 13 July 2016 Methanol, ethanol, propan-1-ol and butan-1-ol are aliphatic alcohols and belong to the same homologous series. Members of the same homologous series have similar chemical properties because they possess the same functional group. For alcohols the functional group is the hydroxyl group (-OH). These are small simple alcohols, with only one functional group, and are compatible in mixtures and if heated or combusted. Therefore, mixtures are safe to use and can easily be made and Science ASSIST recommends the following:

carry out a site specific risk assessment see the Science ASSIST Risk Assessment Template

refer to Safety Data Sheets (SDSs) of all the alcohols used in the experiment

wear suitable PPE such as laboratory coat, gloves, safety glasses and closed in shoes

conduct this experiment under an operating fume cupboard or in a well-ventilated room, investigating the enthalpy change of one mixture at a time.

Safety notes

For safety instructions for the use of spirit burners see a previous question on Fuels.

For more information about the toxicity of the alcohols see a previous question on Toxic alcohols

Methanol, ethanol, propan-1-ol, and butan-1-ol are widely used as fuels because of their high octane rating, which increases fuel efficiency and also as they can be synthesized biologically or chemically.

References

‘Alcohol fuel’, Saylor Academy website, https://resources.saylor.org/wwwresources/archived/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Alcohol- Fuel.pdf (Accessed July 2016)

‘Alcohols’, BBC Bitesize GSCE Chemistry website, https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zyf82hv/revision/1 (Accessed July 2016) ‘Aliphatic’, Illustrated Glossary of Organic Chemistry, UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry website, http://www.chem.ucla.edu/~harding/IGOC/A/aliphatic.html (Accessed July 2016)

‘Bioalcohols’, biofuel.org.uk website, http://biofuel.org.uk/bioalcohols.html (Accessed July 2016)

‘Functional Group’, Illustrated Glossary of Organic Chemistry, UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry website, http://www.chem.ucla.edu/~harding/IGOC/F/functional_group.html (Accessed July 2016)

‘Homolog’, Illustrated Glossary of Organic Chemistry, UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry website, http://www.chem.ucla.edu/~harding/IGOC/H/homolog.html (Accessed July 2016)

‘Octane rating (octane number)’, Illustrated Glossary of Organic Chemistry, UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry website, http://www.chem.ucla.edu/~harding/IGOC/O/octane_rating.html (Accessed July 2016)

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