All About Alcohol Recycling
You’ve been using alcohol for years and are thinking about recycling it. That is a great idea that will save you money! It doesn’t take a lot of training or special knowledge to recycle alcohol. Here are the basics:
Alcohol
When we say “alcohol” we actually mean ethanol. It is used to dehydrate and rehydrate tissue in tissue processing and staining. It is preferred over other alcohols, such as methanol and isopropanol, for dehydration because it is not harsh and preserves cell morphology well.
Because ethanol is heavily taxed, it is not always used in its pure form.
Fully denatured ethanol most often contains methanol, isopropanol, and MIBK (methyl isobutyl ketone). The denaturing agents make the ethanol completely unpalatable. Additionally, people cannot tolerate the taste. There are no limits on the size of containers for fully denatured ethanol and it is not taxed in most locations.
Partially denatured ethanol most often contains methanol and isopropanol. Being partially denatured, it is somewhat unpalatable but supposedly a determined person could still consume it. Partially denatured alcohol can be purchased in containers up to 20 liters (5 gallons) and is moderately taxed.
Pure ethanol does not contain any denaturants. It is heavily taxed since it could potentially be consumed. The largest size container is 4 liters (1 gallon).
Contaminants
Contaminants in alcohol include excess water, stain, fat, paraffin, protein, and biological materials.
Recycling Alcohol
Alcohol is the most demanding solvent to recycle. This is where you will really see a difference between recyclers.
To recycle alcohol, you should choose a solvent recycler that uses fractional distillation by temperature and that has a well-designed distillation column.
The main challenge is to separate alcohol from the water contamination.
The pure alcohol will distill over next. Once all the useable alcohol is distilled into the pure alcohol container, the recycler will automatically stop and cool down.
Left behind in the boiler is a little alcohol along with fat, paraffin, protein and some biological materials.
Pure Alcohol
Recycled alcohol should be perfectly clear and should not have any color at all. The alcohol will be 99.9% pure but the concentration will be a maximum of 95%.
Recovery Rate
The recovery rate for alcohol is about 85% on average.
Waste disposal
The boiler residue is mostly water, with some alcohol, fat, protein, stain and biologicals. The alcohol is very dilute, so this waste is suitable for drain disposal.
What not to recycle
Don’t recycle alcohol contaminated with xylene. Alcohol stations that follow xylene stations are usually contaminated with xylene because of “carryover” from the xylene station.
A simple way to test for xylene contamination in alcohol is to pour a few drops of water into the alcohol. If it gets cloudy (milky), then it is contaminated with xylene and should not be recycled.
Testing Recycled Alcohol:
It is easy to test alcohol purity. Simply wait for the alcohol to reach room temperature, and then use a hydrometer to measure the alcohol content. You can buy a hydrometer from a local scientific equipment supply house or from B/R.
The hydrometer test is very sensitive to temperature. Hot alcohol will appear to have a much higher concentration than it really does. However, don’t fool yourself. Let the alcohol reach room temperature before performing the hydrometer test.
We recommend hydrometers made by companies Fischer Scientific and VWR. They have been making them for decades and are real experts.
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