California bans Denatured Alcohol, and......!!

I believe that is to prevent people from running the denatured alcohol through another distillation to remove the bitterant. Those other components can't be removed through distillation. The bitterant keeps people from trying to drink it in the first place.

Of course all this is regulated by law and there are many ways to denature alcohol depending on it's intended use. You can see the various U.S. formulas for fuel on this website. Looks like there are two main formulas for stove fuel:

Formula 3-A - To every 100 gallons of alcohol add: Five gallons of cyclohexane or methyl alcohol.
Formula 3-C - To every 100 gallons of alcohol add: Five gallons of isopropyl alcohol.

Ben

 

With all the above information my guess then is the ban is because 'denatured alcohol' is a VOC solvent, without regard to the denaturant itself. From this point of view, the ethanol is just as bad as the denaturant.

Which is very rich inasmuch we drink the stuff by the millions of gallons and burn it in our auto fuel by the billions of gallons.

 

I wish I could find they're exact reasoning. Since banning alcoholic beverages would never fly maybe lowering VOCs by banning denatured alcohol for industrial use is the best they can do.

Ben

 

Reasoning......

 

Politicians and reasoning? In California?

 

All this discussion had me looking at fuels today. Dropped the bride off at a funeral of a friend of hers I didn't know. So happened the church wasn't far from three big hardware stores, so I went to take a look.
First was McLendon's Hardware, a regional chain that people say nice things about. KleenStrip denatured alky $19.99 per gallon! This is about an $8 per gallon increase in the last 3 years or so, in an era of low inflation...
Their kero (Kleen again) was $11.99 per gallon and, get this $33.59 for a 2.5 gallon jug. I say 'get this' because unless my brain ain't working, the big jug of the same brand costs more per gallon than the small one....a reversal of all known marketing phenomena!

Lowes and Home Depot were close by. Yanks know these as the giant national chains.
Lowes had denatured alcohol for $16.28 per gallon. Crown brand. I gleefully bought a gallon, paying the lower rip-off price rather than the higher rip-off price. What fools we mortals be! How easy we are to manipulate...
Lowes had Crown kero at $11.99 per gal, with the 5-gallon can at $44.

Home Depot had Kleen alky at $16.97, so two bucks lower than McLendon's and 69 cents more than Lowes, so I made out with the Crown alcohol!

Now, HD had a box of 2 plastic 2.5 gallon jugs of Kleenstrip kero for $44. This is a more convenient bulk buy than the 5 gallon can.

None of the kero prices surprised me (except the McL 2.5 gallon), and I may buy the HD 5-gallon package. Pump kero is hard to find around here now.
Maybe I should point out to the locally-popular McLendon's that HD down the street is selling two Kleenstrip 2.5 gallon jugs for $26 less than they are....

The denatured alcohol prices were very variable, but they've gone up a lot lately. I'll buy more while we still have it...

 

@snwcmpr Politicians and reasoning - anywhere!

@Ed Winskill The larger quantity being higher price when one does the $$/unit calcs happens often enough that it's worth doing the calcs. Last one I remember was Dawn dish soap - two smaller containers were less $$/oz than the one larger container.

 

I've been looking at the MSDS for various products.

• Klean Strip Denatured Alcohol contains ethanol with methanol as a denaturant.
  
• Pure Ambience Ethanol For Fireplace contains ethanol with Denatonium Benzoate as a denaturant.
  
• Moda Flame MSDS pdf is pretty much unreadable on my pc -- looks like it's not really a pdf.
• Nu Flame Liquid Bio-Ethanol Fuel contains Ethanol, Proprietary Ingredients (Trade Secret), Denatonium Benzoate, and Isopropyl Alcohol.

If I search for Klean Strip at a California Lowes or Home Depot, I get redirected to alternative products, so I assume it's on the banned list.

Is methanol really such a big problem in the tiny amounts it's used as a denaturant? Is it more dangerous than isopropanol or denatonium benzoate or some secret proprietary ingredient?

I don't know the answer to that, but I doubt it.

Here's something I do know. If I hitch hike off the PCT into a small town like, say, Burney, CA to resupply, I am (or was) far more likely to find Klean Strip at a hardware store (or HEET, i.e. methanol at an auto parts store) than I am to find fireplace fuel anywhere.

I predict one of the following will happen as a follow-on:

1. Bio-ethanol fireplace fuel will be banned, or
2. The bio-ethanol companies will start selling their product by the gallon at a better price, so folks in the construction trades will buy it to use as a solvent (probably followed by the state banning it).

What I would like to see is the state justify why the products are banned. "High VOCs" alone doesn't cut it.

By the way, I like the bio-ethanol, too. It burns well in the appliances I've tried it in. And I care a great deal about air pollutants. I just want the regulations to make sense.

....Arch

 

Purely incidentally, as I noted in my fuel post, the cheapest denatured alcohol here was Crown. Crown kero was tied or a bit less than KleenStrip. And we know from other threads that Crown camp petrol is the best buy by far compared to Coleman.

I'm liking the Crown brand.....

 

Moda Flame Safety Data Sheet

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1686/6353/files/AEC-ETHANOL-MSDS.v1.pdf

(also uploaded in case the link goes dead in the future)

Isopropyl 4.8-9.0%

 

@Marc Can you read that? It's mostly gobblydegook on my computer.

....Arch

 

Yessir, standard .PDF, comes up just fine in a new tab in my browser.

I've re-attached it as JPEG.

 

Thank you, sir. So it's basically the same as Nu-Flame.

I don't know why I can't read the pdf -- my pc could read all the others.

....Arch

 

Welcome! Yes looks the same as Nu-Flame.

The font on that datasheet is strange, makes me think Chinese origin. Wonder what else is different about it.

 

Thankfully there's no sign of meths being banned in the UK - not yet anyway, but a couple of years back the UK government narrowly avoided banning wood burning stoves!!!! Why??? We have industry chucking out tons and tons of CO2, millions of gallons of diesel and petrol being used in cars and trucks every day, yet for unfathomable reasons they focus on a few thousand families who have wood burning stoves. The effect of wood burning stoves must be dwarfed be the amount of pollution caused by coal, oil, gas, diesel and petrol.

 

Thank you @ArchMc @Marc .
Good information.
I agree with the lack of reasoning for the ban. Simply having VOCs ????

I do not buy products based on being the lowest price. I do not shop at wally world either. I make attempts to purchase with responsibility in mind. I have been reducing my use of plastics. I recycle as much as I can.

 

@ArchMc @snwcmpr @z1ulike @Ed Winskill and others. And apologies to non-US members that are putting up with this discussion about the goofy regulations in the US & California.

Arch, thanks for finding the info on Pure Ambience Ethanol For Fireplace brand. That is what I was looking for -- a brand of fireplace fuel that was actually what it claimed to be on its website and in its ads.

Please note however: Pure Ambience Alcohol is a Canadian product. Is it sold in the US? I have yet to find it for sale in the US, but perhaps it is. Interesting that the MSDS describes it as having a pleasant, agreeable, and fragrant odor/taste. Perhaps a different taste palet for bitterants for those north of the border?

It still appears to me that the fake-fireplace fuels, in the US, likely contain isopropanol in some proportion. In my book something called pure "bio-ethanol" should be ethanol and not a mix with isopropanol. I suppose since it was pure bio-ethanol before they added isopropanol, it is technically not a lie.

Significance? Not much. Truth in advertising? There may be a very good reason to add isopropanol to fireplace fuel (adds flame color?) in addition to tax purposes. I simply maintain that if it is, then the product should not be advertised as pure bio-ethanol. A little isopropanol should not be a problem, and I have even run a couple of pressurized stoves on 91% isopropanol with good results. I guess my point is simply that, in the US at least, you can safely assume that any thing marketed as "pure" or "bio-xxxxx" can be pretty much anything-but and probably is. Same goes for "healthy" breakfast cereal, "healthy" protein bars, etc.


From the MSDS:

SUPPLIER: Laboratoire Provence Canada Inc.
ADDRESS: 675 BERGERON DRUMMONDVILLE J2C 7V5 Qc CANADA

APPEARANCE: Liquid. Clear. Hygroscopic.
COLOUR: Colorless / lightly colored
ODOUR/TASTE: Characteristic. Pleasant, agreeable, and fragrant.
SOLUBILITY DESCRIPTION: Miscible with water. Soluble in most ...

 

Hi Colin @Colin Geer , the answer to your question is TAXES! We all pay all sorts of taxes on electricity, gas, coal, any other fossil fuels, but NOT on the wood we harvest ourselves. It won't be long before everyone having solar panels will get to pay taxes etc. too. We must enjoy while we can!

 

Are there any health or safety differences when burning ethanol in our stoves? As I understand it, Kleenstrip and other big box store denatured alcohols are 50-70% methanol, and I understand the issues with that fuel’s toxicity. But when comparing the 95% ethanol fuels available here in most of the USA, is there a difference if the denaturant is a bitterant or isopropyl? Brad

 

I'd venture there is little danger with either one when burned in a stove for a short period, especially if used in a well ventilated space. The incomplete combustion products of isopropanol are probably little worse than those from the ethanol (CO, particulates, aldehydes, benzene derivatives, etc). I don't know what the deal is with the bitterant but it is in very low concentration to begin with so it should be insignificant.

In terms of small spills or skin exposure clearly the isopropanol is relatively safe. Denatonium is suppose to be harmless, but there are other bitterants and some could probably be toxic.