Can somebody confirm that i think it is ok for me to do htae using 2-4% ethanol instead of methanol or a mixture of the two will be looking at reducing fat tit 14 down to 2-3 in couple of hrs regards andy

the biggest question I would have is the purity of the ethanol..ethanol love water..more so than methanol. less than 99% pure and you have problems with the AE/HTAE working..

I don't have a ethanol source that's pure enough so I've never tried using it

-dkenny

Thanks for the reply DK in aus it is methylated spirit i believe it is 95-98% ethanol with 2-5% methanol as denaturing agent sold to the lab I work in as technical grade I will give it a try and see. regards andy

Please keep us posted. I would love to see the results of this as well. From the gerpen article Ethanl reacted faster than the methanol used. It also helps the cloud point by using higher alcohols and handles higher temperatures. The azeotrope that the ethanol forms with water is a problem though. Denatured is probably the best way to go, as mentioned though anything more than about 1-2% water and you are going to run into issues.

I've read of several people trying the transesterficaion reaction (with little sucess) with ethanol but never the acid esterfication yet.

There does seem to be water in metho, you could use dehydrated copper sulfate to dry it. Test a sample if there is water in the metho the anhydrous CuSO4 will turn bright blue.