Ethanol can also be used as a disinfectant and antiseptic because it causes cell dehydration by disrupting the osmotic balance across the cell membrane, so water leaves the cell leading to cell death. Antidote
Ethanol may be administered as an antidote to ethylene glycol poisoning and methanol poisoning. Ethanol serves this process by acting as a competitive inhibitor against methanol and ethylene glycol for alcohol dehydrogenase. Though it has more side effects, ethanol is less expensive and more readily available than fomepizole, which is also used as an antidote for methanol and ethylene glycol poisoning. Medicinal solvent
Ethanol, often in high concentrations, is used to dissolve many water-insoluble medications and related compounds. Liquid preparations of pain medications, cough and cold medicines, and mouth washes, for example, may contain up to 25% ethanol and may need to be avoided in individuals with adverse reactions to ethanol such as alcohol-induced respiratory reactions. Ethanol is present mainly as an antimicrobial preservative in over 700 liquid preparations of medicine including acetaminophen, iron supplements, ranitidine, furosemide, mannitol, phenobarbital, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole and over-the-counter cough medicine. Pharmacology
In mammals, ethanol is primarily metabolized in the liver and stomach by alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) enzymes. These enzymes catalyze the oxidation of ethanol into acetaldehyde (ethanal):
CH3CH2OH + NAD+ → CH3CHO + NADH + H+When present in significant concentrations, this metabolism of ethanol is additionally aided by the cytochrome P450 enzyme CYP2E1 in humans, while trace amounts are also metabolized by catalase.The resulting intermediate, acetaldehyde, is a known carcinogen, and poses significantly greater toxicity in humans than ethanol itself.
French chemist Antoine Lavoisier described ethanol as a compound of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and in 1807 Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure determined ethanols chemical formula. Fifty years later, Archibald Scott Couper published the structural formula of ethanol. It was one of the first structural formulas determined.Ethanol was first prepared synthetically in 1825 by Michael Faraday. He found that sulfuric acid could absorb large volumes of coal gas. He gave the resulting solution to Henry Hennell, a British chemist, who found in 1826 that it contained "sulphovinic acid" (ethyl hydrogen sulfate). In 1828, Hennell and the French chemist Georges-Simon Serullas independently discovered that sulphovinic acid could be decomposed into ethanol. Thus, in 1825 Faraday had unwittingly discovered that ethanol could be produced from ethylene (a component of coal gas) by acid-catalyzed hydration, a process similar to current industrial ethanol synthesis.Ethanol was used as lamp fuel in the United States as early as 1840, but a tax levied on industrial alcohol during the Civil War made this use uneconomical. The tax was repealed in 1906. Use as an automotive fuel dates back to 1908, with the Ford Model T able to run on petrol (gasoline) or ethanol. It fuels some spirit lamps. Ethanol intended for industrial use is often produced from ethylene. Ethanol has widespread use as a solvent of substances intended for human contact or consumption, including scents, flavorings, colorings, and medicines. In chemistry, it is both a solvent and a feedstock for the synthesis of other products.