Why is it toxic to ingest alcohol from disinfectants but we can drink alcoholic beverages?

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I’ve been digging on the Alcohol matter for like an hour and i’m still confused. As i understood is the same type of alcohol they use for cleaning and for drinking.

In: Chemistry

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Different types of alcohol, beverages contain ethanol which is safe for human consumption till a limit obviously. Disinfectants usually used isopropyl alcohol which isn’t safe for consumption.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Alcohol isn’t equal to alcohol.

For drinkable alcohol you need to make sure that methyl-alcohols stay under a certain amount.

Thats why moonshine can blind or kill you, during the distilling you need to take some extra caution to get a safe drinkable product.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Because it isn’t just alcohol or is the wrong type of alcohol. There are many types of alcohol and the only type we can drink is called ethanol. The rest are very toxic, even more so than ethanol, such as methanol for example.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Ethyl Alcohol, or ethanol (C2H5OH), is the type used in the production of alcoholic beverages. The other three types, methyl, propyl and butyl alcohol, if consumed can result in blindness and death, even in relatively small doses.

Source: https://www.drugs.com/alcohol.html

Anonymous 0 Comments

Alcohol in disinfectants is denatured (poisoned) so manufacturers don’t have to pay excise taxes on it the way they would if the alcohol were drinkable.