Denatured Alcohol - Uses

Uses

Denatured alcohol has a variety of common uses:

• As a fuel for marine and ultra-light camping (backpacking) stoves. It is inexpensive, may be extinguished with water, and can be transported without special containers. However, safety concerns do arise from the near-colourless flame with which alcohol burns. A jellied and dyed form is used in the Sterno brand fuel "Canned Heat", which is meant to be ignited and used in its container.
• To pre-heat the vaporizing tubes on a wickless paraffin stove such as a Primus stove
• As a sanding aid, as the alcohol helps to more easily remove excess dust because it does not open the wood grain the way that water does.
• As a mealybug exterminator.
• As a cleaning aid in removing ink stains from upholstery or clothes.
• As a cleaner in daily housekeeping
• As a solvent in shellac and shellac-based products.
• As an excipient in a number of pharmaceutical products for oral and topical use.
• As a less expensive alternative to pure ethanol in preserving biological specimens.
• As a less toxic alternative to methanol in the production of biodiesel fuel. Biodiesel produced using ethanol is properly called fatty acid ethyl ester, whereas biodiesel from methanol is properly referred to as fatty acid methyl ester.
• For maintenance of wicks in kerosene heaters and lamps to remove water contaminants and restore the capillary action of the wick. As a wick cleaner and a kerosene additive, adding approx. 1 teaspoon denatured alcohol per gallon of kerosene.
• As a fuel for older toy steam engines which used a wick-type or vapourising burner.
• For window washing
• As a fuel for fire jugglers and fire spinners. This can be used in conjunction with boric acid to create a greenish fire effect.
• It can be used in cooking to test pectin levels when making jam, jelly and marmalade.

In the United States, small amounts of denatured alcohol are used in many consumer products such as toothpaste, where they are labeled as "SD alcohol XX", where SD stands for "specially denatured" and XX is the formula used in the denaturing process that specifies the denaturants. These formulas for denatured alcohol are found in 27 CFR part 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Some of these formulas, such as SD alcohol 38-B, are designed to be unpalatable but otherwise non-poisonous; they are used in applications like mouthwashes where some amount of incidental ingestion is expected. (The specific denaturants in formulas 37 and 38-B closely resemble the active ingredients in alcohol-based mouthwashes like Listerine.)