Living in Canada means limited access to 'denatured alcohol' as such. We have methyl hydrate readily available, but denatured alcohol is not to be found. Knowing that it produces more energy than methyl hydrate, I picked up a gallon (might as well have a lot) of Sunnyside denatured alcohol while visiting Florida recently. My first test with the stuff immediately produced some potentially disappointing results.
1) more orange/yellow flame vs the consistent blue of methyl hydrate.
2) a weird burnishing effect on the bottom of my ti pot.

Has anyone noticed this with 'denatured alcohol' in general, or perhaps is this a questionable brand?

Hmmm. I use denatured alcohol (forget the brand-- blue and orange can) and it always burns a nice blue flame and if there is a residue it is not visible on my HAA kettle...


Maybe you did get a bad batch?

Jason, check out the BPL articles on alcohol burners and you'll be agast at what's in denatured alcohol besides alcohol: traces of benzene, toluene, formaldehyde, acetone, etc. In short, DA seems to be where toxic industrial wastes are disposed of. So don't inhale the fumes! The additives vary from batch to batch so there's no way of knowing, and it's not stated on the can. But if you go to their web site you'll get a better idea. (Sunnyside seemed to be the scariest).

The residue you mention is very slight when compared to that which results from burning Esbit, so I don't complain.

Since you're in Canada, why don't you burn pure Ethel Alcohol (I'm assuming it's readily and cheaply available there)? Here in the States it's called Everclear and can be had in some State liquor stores but is pricy.

Alternatively, some folks use a product put in gas tanks in the winter called HEET. It's a type of DA.

The brand of DA that comes in the orange and blue can is S-L-X. Seemed to be less dicy than Sunnyside if I remember right.

Happy trails!

I've been using the S-L-X Denatured Alcohol for the past 5 years or so. Very little odor, and the soot is virtually undetectable. In Washington State, I get it at Lowe's, or Fred Meyer.

I just got back from Argentina/Chile several weeks ago where it was very difficult to get Denatured alcohol. In Ushuaia, after much searching, I found some, but it contained an additive that made it stink terribly and produce a very heavy soot.

The stuff from Ushuaia was so bad that when I went to El Calafate, I went searching again. I finally found some in the last backpacking store in town. The Denatured Alcohol wasn't nearly as bad as the stuff in Ushuaia, but it still left soot. The smell was similar to the stuff from Ushuaia, but not nearly as strong.

Below are a couple of websites that detail different fuels for Alcohol Stoves, and substitutes in different countries:

http://fuel.papo-art.com/
http://zenstoves.net/Stoves.htm

Living in Canada, I can vouch for the fact that it isn't easy to find denatured alcohol, but it IS available. I found my batch in the pharmacy section of a Shoppers Drug Mart (similar to a Jean Coutu), next to the rubbing alcohol. It is listed as "rubbing alcohol compound", but there is nothing compound about it when you read the composition. It's 95% pure denatured alcohol and works perfectly, with the near-invisible flame you would expect.

Hope this helps!

There are many threads along this subject. I posted on the gram weenie stove thread about a fuel I found. I was looking for Everclear 191 but can't get in WA state. I found 95% pure Ethanol at;

www. hyperfuels.com

It is cheap at 8.99/ US gal, but the shipping costs bring it up to about $20/gal. It is still much cheaper than the alternatives. I don't believe it's cost effective to ship to Canada though, unless maybe a few people buy a couple of gallons and split the shipping fees.

The pure Ethanol does seem to burn longer as suggested in the BPL article, which means that I can carry less. It's one drawback is that it does leave a little residue or burnished appearance. It really is light and not an issue.

Greg

Canadian denatured alcohol at:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=20107&cat=1,190,42942
I found that while looking for low toxics shellac thinner (I forget whether it actually is low toxic or not).

Greg, that hyperfuels.com site is a find. I wonder what the other 5% is in their 95% ethanol. It's also available in 1 quart cans, also 99.5% methanol.

Walter,
I am trying to get an MSDS from them. According to the information I have found online, 100% ethanol quickly absorbs 5% water from the humidity in the air. So for now, I am assuming it's water because the goal of those fuels is 100% alcohol. I could be wrong!

The fumes are not of great concern to me. I don't use my stoves that often, and when I do it is outdoors and I don't stand over them and breathe in the by products. I would choose a safer alternative if I knew of one that is readily available at a reasonable cost. I believe this to be a much safer fuel than DA. And from what I got out of the article, 100% Ethanol is the way to go.

The owner of Hyperfuels sates that he does sell this as stove fuel to many people.

Greg

gl

Greg, that is not a safe assumption.

If your denatured alcohol were 95% ethanol and 5% water, then it would be highly drinkable.

Denatured alcohol is intentionally poisoned so that it cannot be safely consumed, and the poisoning agent is typically and mostly methanol.

--B.G.--

Read at Wikipedia on denatured alcohol.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol

In the case of this Hyperfuels Denatured Ethanol, the other 5% is mostly the denaturant used to make the alcohol poison to consume called natural gasoline. Natural gasoline is not natural gas (which is mostly methane) but is instead a heavier liquid hydrocarbon mixture made up of pentanes (C5's) and heavier components. It is often used as a feedstock in liquid feed olefin crackers to make ethylene, propylene, benzene, butadiene, etc. and not something you would want to drink. There are hundreds of denaturants used to make denatured ethanol and a common one that is used is methanol, but that is not the denaturant used by this supplier. Because of the heavier components in this Denatured Ethanol, I would not be surprised to see a residue in the bottom of your pot, a slightly more orange flame, and even a little bit more smokey fire (especially if it is a little starved for combustion air).

thanks for the feedback. i think i'll be ditching this batch from Sunnyside, and will check Shoppers and Lee Valley for the suggested products. I expect shipping anything into Canada will be unreasonably expensive. I've tried the LCBO (provincially run liquor store monopoly) for Everclear, or other similar overproof liquors, but they just aren't stocked. will pursue these new options though!

Sunnyside was supposed to be the Denatured with the highest Ethanol content to it, according to the MSDS I read.

However, I'm going through a gallon of it myself right now, and it does produce very different results from my stoves.

It produces longer flame, that no matter how I tune the jets always has yellow tips. This however, doesn't seem to really mean that it's crappier fuel, atleast from a performance perspective. This gallon has lasted me forever, and I'm getting very good boil times with it. It burns very hot.

It does seem to produce worse smelling fumes, and it certainly soots like crazy.

I don't think I'll buy it again.

Bob,
Safe to me is a relative term. I did not say I was going to drink it. Knowing what I knew (and I see that hyper fuels has edited the description and lists it's content now) the assumption was that it was most likely safer than most products labeled as DA. They ALL have some form of denatureant (is that a word) added.

It does not really change the fact that I would never inhale a significant amout amount of it. And yes, I realize that "significant" in this context varies widely with the product.

There are varying amounts of toxic by products in all forms of combustion. Maybe the only thing that could be assumed is that grain alcohol may be the safest form?

gl

Hi Marc,

Are you a chemist? How does this compare to other products that are dentured in terms of toxic fumes? The other denatured products that use methanol usually contains many other additives as well, and according to the article, methanol is not the safest thing to breathe. What are your thoughts?
Greg

Edit- Marc, the flame is very blue with no yellow flame. As I said, I can get a boil with less fuel than the SLx DA I was using.

Edited by gpl916 on 03/26/2010 12:52:32 MDT.

Just remember the lines from the old 1964 movie: Dr. Strangelove. The wacky character General Ripper drank only pure grain alcohol, "to preserve the purity and essence of our natural fluids."

--B.G.--

Hi Greg,
I'm not a chemist - I'm a chemical engineer. Sorry, but it is kind of a sore spot with Chem E's when we are called chemists. Here is a post on the same subject I did a while ago:
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/xdpy/forum_thread/28187/index.html?skip_to_post=234260#234260
I hope this answers your questions
Relative toxicity is a difficult area to make judgments and frankly, toxicity is not my specialty. But in the chemical industry, we all have to deal with it. I would say these components are not as bad as the MIK I see in other products.
I'm not quite sure why your not see the effect of the heavy tail (burning of the heavier components as you get down to the last of the fuel in the stove). Are you seeing any soot or deposit on the bottom of your pot? Any residue in the alcohol stove itself? If not, it just may be a really tight mixture of alkanes in the natural gasoline and the natural gasoline concentration could be on the low end - their data shows 1.5 to 5% natural gasoline content.

Marc wrote: "I'm not a chemist - I'm a chemical engineer. Sorry, but it is kind of a sore spot with Chem E's when we are called chemists."

Yes, but it is a sore spot only until the paycheck arrives.

--B.G.--

"You say potato, I say-----" well never mind. Just kidding!!

I do see a little soot. But soot isn't an appropriate word for it. It is more like a discoloring of the Ti. It doesn't really come off of the metal.

There is no soot or discoloring on the stove.

Greg

Edited by gpl916 on 03/26/2010 14:53:03 MDT.

Isn't that discoloration more of a surface heat effect on the _coating_ of the metal? In other words, if it were pure metal, then you wouldn't see the same effect.

--B.G.--