What are some safety issues of of ethanol?
491547
Ethanol has a low flash point (-5 C), which is the temperature at which enough vapors in the air can be present to create an explosive atmosphere; a spark or flame can cause an explosion.  It also does burn with a weakly colored flame, making it hard to see.  \nAlso - high-strength ethanol that you can by is called denatured alcohol - there are many kinds, but they are all poisoned with something - methanol, isopropanol, toluene etc. which render it undrinkable.  Don't do it.\nPunch in "MSDS" and "ethanol" into yahoo and pull up a material safety data sheet.
1155530
hmm well ethanol is flammable anyway so you could just put some in a container and light it on fire. I don't think it would make a very good candle though. Probably wouldnt be very good to breathe in either. I think they make a kind of ethanol gel you could use too.
190561
Environmentally speaking E85 is a viable choice. Economically speaking it is not. Current ethanol prices have reached an all time high of $2.60 retail. Ethanol is harder to produce and more expensive than gasoline. More than likely this can be attributed to the R&D technology, but keep in mind that E85 is a mixture of 85% ethanol and 15% gas. So even if it is a viable choice, you still need gas at this point. WHen utilizing E-85 you also loose 25% efficiency in milage and addd water to your motor, which in the long run can cause major harm. The technology is still not perfected.\n\nEthanol is mainly made from sugar. Currently Ethanol facilities are utilizing corn as the only source. Once technology improves, it can become financially viable. Not at this time though.
547026
sugar cane is recognized as having the least trouble creating ethanol. In Brazil this works wonderfully. They have removed the need to import oil and are actually exporting ethanol. In the US sugar cane doesn't grow as well. sugar cane is best in tropical climates. \n\nIn the US corn is the most common for ethanol. It isn't the best crop but is efficient enough for now. Industry best(meaning in the lab) for producing ethanol is above 1 btu of fuel produces 2 btus of ethanol. \n\nFor non-tropical climates cellulose based ethanol is also making big waves. It's advantages are that every living plant tissue is at least 80% cellulose. Dead tissue like wood is around 30 to 40 percent cellulose. A farmer could sell the normal corn seed, and then bale the corn stalks, which are usually left on the ground, for ethanol. Another advantage is that on irrigated and fertilized lands you can grow better than 10 tons of cellulose per acre per season if grown for harvesting cellulose verus the 2.5 tons per acre of corn seed. critiria for a plant for this process is a plant that grows a lost of mass per acre. \n\nEthanol is meant to replace gasoline fuel not diesel fuel.\nDiesel engines don't have spark plugs, so they can't ignite high octane fuels like gasoline and ethanol. Instead they hammer-strike the better performing low octane deisel fuel. \n\nMost gas engines out there probably can be converted to work with ethanol. There are a number of conversion kits available. It is likely to work better however if they come from the factory. \n\nBio-deisel is wonderful for most diesel engines. I'm afraid I don't know a lot about that topic.
473961
Do you mean other than death or brain damage?\n\nHere's a little quote:\n"Unwanted effects of exposure to ether can include a cough, sore throat, painful red eyes, a headache, drowsiness, laboured breathing and nausea. Vomiting is quite common. But some people like its sub-anaesthetic effects on consciousness; it has "abuse potential"." (1)\n\nIt is also very flammable. I would say explosively so, more than gasoline. Careless/sedated person + ether = possible BOOM! It's not safe to fool around with from this standpoint.
53184
methanol (rubbing alcohol);\n\none carbon, attached to one oxygen, with hydrogen everywhere else\n\nethanol (drinking alcohol);\n\ntwo carbons attached, one oxygen, with hydrogen everywhere else\n\nethyl ketone (very bad variation on ethanol, which is naturally occuring)\n\ntwo carbons attached, an oxygen attached by double bond, and hydrogen (one less hydrogen) everywhere else
247317
There may be some resistant mammalian cells, but generally 70% ethanol will kill-not because of dehydration, but because the solution will dissolve the lipids in the cell membrane, leaving only the protein scaffolding-thus the cell will completely lose it's ionic and chemical balance.
140226
ethanol and oil\nwater and chloroform
389540
Well, ethanol is a hydrocarbon, so the combustion reaction is:\n\n2C2H5OH + 7O2 --> 4CO2 + 6H2O\n\nThis reaction produces a lot of energy. If an engine is created for ethanol use, it can utilize that energy in a cylinder just like a normal engine.
179183
How about a project about fuel ethanol.  Ethanol being used as a fuel is a hot topic right now.  With all the problems with oil, Bush has passed a lot of energy bills to support research on making ethanol. Its cheaper than regular gas and safer for the enviroment.  Good luck :)
492990
You could make ethanol from grass clippings, though as others have pointed out you are more likely to end up with methanol. Not that this is a major problem, methanol is a perfectly effective fuel in its own right.\n\n\nThe real problem is one of efficiency. Grass clippings are very dispersed, in the sense that you can't harvest hundreds of tonnes of them every hour as you can with maize or cane. Because of that any ethanol production will be small scale, which is inherently inefficient. You would almost certainly end up using more fuel in the process than you would actually produce.\n\nRemember even cane or maize ethanol production doesn't actually produce fuel. We currently use more fossil fuels producing ethanol then the ethanol actually replaces. Ethanol is an economic and political exercise, it has no environmental benefits.
119793
Short answer: Not important; it will not even benefit farmers in the long run. \n\nUntil the US begins making ethanol from something other than corn, it is wasting more oil than it is saving, and only benefiting us by reducing URBAN air pollution. Since farmers use diesel and fertilizer made from natural gas, and ethanol plants use large quantities of natural gas in refining ethanol, there is a net loss of energy in US produced ethanol.  This is what a geoengineering professor at UC Berkeley found:\n"The fossil energy expended during production alone, he concluded, easily outweighs the consumable energy in the end product....."People tend to think of ethanol and see an endless cycle: corn is used to produce ethanol, ethanol is burned and gives off carbon dioxide, and corn uses the carbon dioxide as it grows," he said. "But that isn't the case. Fossil fuel actually drives the whole cycle.... "We are grasping at the solution that is by far the least efficient."\n\nAs long as we keep making it the way we do, it will not be a suitable alternative to gasoline, nor will it result in lower imports of oil for the US. \n\nThe other part of that problem is that if we turned the  ENTIRE annual US corn crop into ethanol to burn for automotive fuel, it would not last more than a few months of the year  based on our current fuel consumption.  We cannot grow enough corn to use ethanol as a complete substitute for gasoline. \n\nThe Brazilians have been much more efficient and use ethanol for a large percentage of their automotive fuel. They grow sugar cane and refine it using eucalyptus wood-fired refineries. Brazil's primary reason for this effort has been to improve their balance of trade by exporting oil rather than consuming it internally. In an interesting twist, Brazil may be able to export ethanol for less money than American farmers can produce it, and so the American farmers may soon find themselves with even more extra corn (and thus lower corn prices) due to adoption of ethanol. \nhttp://www.crystalsugar.com/media/news.archives/cargill.asp\nhttp://www.greencarcongress.com/2004/07/when_is_ethanol.html\n\nIt appears that making ethanol from corn not only will not solve our oil problems, it probably won't even be competitive without huge taxpayer subsidies to make it cheaper than imported sources of ethanol. It will continue to be added to gasoline in order to comply with EPA emissions rules, but that is the only real benefit. Everything else is just a waste of your tax dollars in my opinion.
106576
You'd need 4 L of dehydrated alcohol and 1 L of water in order to get a 80% solution. Getting a dry solution of ethanol would be a challenge, though, so I would expect it to be closer to 75-77% in actuality (but theoretically 80)
932916
ethanol further purifies petrol and help the burning process there is some thing known as kalorific value which will decide the purity with ethanol the petrol burns to full capacity and in turn improves kv  with less pollution and also ethanol keeps fuel tank till injector clean \nviv-a-vis less pollution improved mielage and easy start
1113384
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame#Health_risks_controversy
992516
A n energy related project:\n\n1.  Ethanol production, ferment and distill - very easy.  Ethanol is used in gasoline, made from fermented sugar or starch.  Combine sugar, water, and yeast, covered so no air gets in (a plastic bottle with a balloon over the neck).  Let ferment 3 -5 days, balloon will go up then down.  Then in a small pot, put in 3/4 inch of the liquid and a small glass in the middle.  Invert the pot cover and put ice and water in it.  Boil very slowly till about 1/4 of the liquid is gone.  Cool down and you'll have ethanol in the small glass.  Repeat distillation to increase concentration of ethanol.
615613
when ethanol is burned, it emits acetaldehide — considered a probable human carcinogen by the EPA