Purpose
Denatured alcohol is not, in itself, a preferred product — that is, it is not something that would be normally demanded if given the alternative of normal ethanol. Denatured alcohol and its manufacture are a public policy compromise. The supply and demand for denatured alcohol arises from the fact that normal alcohol (which in everyday language refers specifically to ethanol, suitable for human consumption as a drink) is usually very expensive in comparison with similar chemicals, being highly taxed for revenue and public health policy purposes (see sin tax). If pure ethanol were made cheaply available as a fuel or solvent, people would drink it.
Denatured alcohol provides a solution to permit legitimate use and manufacture of ethanol, whereby cheap ethanol can be made available for non-consumption use without the risk of its being converted for consumption. The process creates an ethanol-containing solution that is not suitable for drinking, but is otherwise similar to ethanol for most purposes. As a result, there is no duty on denatured alcohol in most countries, making it considerably cheaper than pure ethanol. As a consequence, its composition is tightly defined by government regulations that vary between countries.
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