How to make anhydrous ethanol (100% alcohol)

In this video we will be making some 100% Ethanol from 95% Ethanol. I use molecular sieves but other drying agents can be used. I just like sieves the most.

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[SIStefanov]

When I was in highschool I was in a chemistry club. I joined due to a girl I liked. Chemistry was fun and obv. I still love it, but my work is unrelated to the field. One time we had the task to ferment some grapes into a sort of wine then seperate the alcohol and later further destill it into 100% ethanol. This was a whole semester wide project that took many sessions time and effort on the whole club (6 people incl. the teacher). I remember very clearly when we had the 100% ethanol and how happy we were to achieve our goal. I remember filtering the ethanol with the m. sieves through a coffee filter. I remember washing the sieves with distilled water. I remember realising that I just dilluted the batch to less then 50% and so destroyed two weeks of work. That day I realized that I am just slightly, but definitively a moron.

[HeartCell]

Also known in labs as "the good stuff".

[mjallen]

I’m so glad I found this! I’ve been needing to make 100% ethanol as well for no reason. I don’t have any of the equipment or the money to buy any of the ingredients, including the ethanol, but it’s good to have the instructions on hand just in case.

[Scott.E.H]

Finally, a drink strong enough for Norse Gods.

[Diegovnia]

My pharmacy sells 95% alcohol... [Laughs in Polish where literally every corner shop sells 95% alcohol]

[ContextEffects]

0:16

Fun fact, undergraduate labs sometimes include additives that make anyone who would attempt to ingest the alcohol puke it up faster than they would with actual alcohol, so at the undergrad level it wouldn't necessarily be 100% anyway, azeotrope or no azeotrope.

[kdawg]

Chemical engineer here. First of all, great clear and quick explanation of azeotropic distillation even though you opted not to use that method. I rarely, if ever, see it explained so clearly in my engineering books.

A couple things worth noting:

1) Mole sieves are the pretty much the best nonreactive way to get contaminants to the lowest possible percentages if they're applicable to the situation. 3A is perfect for removing water as it doesn't fit almost any other molecules except H2O into the pores. However, mole sieves have much lower capacities in exchange for their high adsorptivity. 5% water is probably too much for a mole sieve I thought up front, but I was pleasantly surprised that you were able to adsorb all that water in just two treatments. At higher volumes, though, mole sieves would become uneconomical. Great for keeping your ethanol dry, though, in storage as you're doing.

In engineering practice at larger volumes, using only adsorption, it's most cost effective to use alumina first as a cheaper bulk adsorbent for water, then polish the last remaining bits of water out with mole sieves. Both can be regenerated with heat. Silica gel is another possible adsorbent that can be regenerated, but you'd have to check your gel's affinity for water over ethanol just to be sure it'll work. Adsorption is a very versatile separation method as long you do your adsorbent homework.

2) There are a lot of other ways of "breaking" azeotropes listed in the Wikipedia "Azeotrope" article. Changing the distillation pressure will usually change the azeotropic temperature and composition allowing you to get past the atmospheric azeotrope. Apparently, that pressure swing effect won't work for ethanol-water, but it's viable for other mixtures. Using selective membranes will also work. There are many other methods. Obviously, not all will work for all types of mixtures or be viable at lab scale. I just wanted to expand upon your point of showing that there are a lot of other interesting separation processes, both physical and chemical, that we use after good ole distillation reaches its limits.

[jonathandemiguel]

You missed some ethanol at the filter. Try washing it with a bit of distilled water!

[mrfushiante]

I just realized how old this video is... this is being filmed in his dads garage lol
im so happy his parents were so supportive of him... bc look how far hes come and where hes at today!
thx mom n dad

[georgedowson]

Molecular sieve dust can interfere with reactions, and the sieves do effectively gobble up a good chunk of your solvent (as you can't fully drain the flask).
If you're going to distill the ethanol anyway, there is a better route that does remove ALL the water (down to undetectable levels - sieves can't quite get there and a small amount of water will be released towards the end of the distillation if you end up distilling it dry).

Put your azeotropic ethanol (or sieve-dried ethanol!) into a beaker, add a lump of sodium (sufficient to react with the water present), wait for it to dissolve, and then distill the resulting mixture. The sodium lump will immobilise the water into sodium hydroxide, allowing you to distill the solvent mixture to dryness (don't do this at a large scale, as dangerous contaminants may collect - but for lab scale there's no issue). Excess sodium will form sodium ethoxide, which is a water scavenger itself (it reacts with water to generate ethanol and sodium hydroxide).

If you want to do this process at large scale (check local law!), you want the benzene pressure-swing process.


It's not regeneratable but it will give you analytically pure ethanol. You can store it over some magnesium turnings, which can be used in the place of the sodium if you like - although this route needs a crystal of iodine to activate the magnesium [breaks through the oxide layer] before you start. So really it depends on how well-stocked your lab is!

[cbfull]

I really love your experiments!! I just wanted to share some things I’ve learned about sieves. Molecular sieves will slowly pull air molecules into their pores as they sit. It is generally best to freshly bake the sieves before using them. This drives the gases out of the pores and allows the water molecules to be literally pulled directly into them. It’s essentially a vacuum that adds a lot of extra pull. You can demonstrate this by sealing freshly baked sieves in a plastic container, and as the air is absorbed, the plastic container will collapse.
If you don’t use freshly regenerated sieves, you have to wait for the air molecules to get driven out (displaced), which adds a significant amount of time to the solvent drying process.

[sandygehrmann]

Take a shot of ethanol every time he says "sieves"

[AlienP]

2019: Let's use the alcohol to make moonshine
2020: Let's use the alcohol to make hand sanitizer

[StrokeMahEgo]

alright gentlemen we have pure ethanol, time to get wasted!

[Jazz-jizu]

Another of your experiments that I cant wait to try! Thanks for always providing great projects and fun things we can try at home with just a little bit of effort! My clear wood continues to impress people and I intend to try it again soon. Thanks again, NileRed!

[thestealthtarget]

There is a third method as well, which is pressure swing distillation. After reaching 95%, take that mixture and do a high pressure (10 bar) distillation, and the ethanol will come off the top at nearly 100%.

[vertical]

My brother drank the fortnite juice under the sink and now he won’t wake up

[edlong]

Another possible drying agent is common table salt NaCl as it is hydrophilic and insoluble in alcohol. The salt combines with the water but remains insoluble to the alcohol. This causes the alcohol and water to separate into two layers with the much less dense alcohol floating atop the denser salt water. The alcohol can then simply be decanted off leaving the salt water behind. One could also distill the alcohol off the salt water as well, but that would be more time consuming and more effort.

The remaining saltwater can then be dried which will leave your salt behind able to be reused again in much the same fashion as your filter beads.

[pirobotbeta]

There is a hybrid distillation technique using glycerol.
Pass the ethanol vapors through hot glycerol; the ethanol passes right on by, the water hangs out to party!!
Glycerol is easily swapped out & dried.

[SuperZorark]

i like how youtube recommended this since ethanol products are scarce in our market... or they are just listening to my home conversations