I use a lot of ethanol at work for scientific purposes. I also use at home for beverage purposes!
What uses does ethanol have at home?
Well you've got Ethanol fuel for your car and of course it's in all your alcoholic beverages.
Yes, that's true. What kind of alcoholic beverages do you likr?
I like anything that is the product of the fermentation of grains. Meaning: I like beer and I like whiskey.
I like those too, however I also enjoy spirits. What do you use ethanol for at work?
I use ethanol because it is volatile and has a consistent surface tension. This makes it great for measuring the pore size of filters via a "bubble point" test.
What is your job?
Membrane technology
Membrane technology covers all engineering approaches for the transport of substances between two fractions with the help of permeable membranes. In general, mechanical separation processes for separating gaseous or liquid streams use membrane technology.
Applications.
Membrane separation processes operate without heating and therefore use less energy than conventional thermal separation processes such as distillation, sublimation or crystallization. The separation process is purely physical and both fractions (permeate and retentate) can be used. Cold separation using membrane technology is widely used in the food technology, biotechnology
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Denaturing alcohol does not chemically alter the ethanol molecule. Rather, the ethanol is mixed with other chemicals to form a foul-tasting, often toxic, solution. For many of these solutions, there is no practical way to separate the components.
Uses.
In many countries, sales of alcoholic beverages are heavily taxed for revenue and public health policy purposes (see Pigovian tax). In order to avoid paying beverage taxes on alcohol that is not meant to be consumed, the alcohol must be "denatured