Ethanol, also known as ethyl alcohol or grain alcohol, is a colorless, volatile, flammable liquid with the chemical formula C2H5O. Ethanol is a polar substance, which is miscible with water and many organic solvents such as methanol, Isopropanol, acetone, ethyl acetate, and glycerol. Ethanol is naturally produced by the fermentation process of plant-based materials such as sugars, corn, and wheat by yeasts.

Ethanol as a solvent

Ethanol is used in pharma, research, and academia as a reagent as well as a solvent. Because of its relatively low toxicity compared with other alcohols and ability to dissolve non-polar substances, ethanol can be used as a solvent in medical drugs, perfumes, and vegetable essences such as vanilla.

In analytical chemistry, ethanol is used for extraction of alkaloids from plant materials, and as a mobile phase in chromatography.

Ethanol as a co-solvent

Ethanol and water (Ethanol solution) mixture is used as a recrystallization solvent, as a reaction medium in chemical reactions, as a reaction medium in chemical synthesis and as a standard reference material in the calibration of instruments and techniques used for the determination of ethanol.

The ethanol/acetone mixture is used in base catalyzed aldol condensation.

Hydrochloric acid in ethanol mixture is used in acid catalyzed reactions, such as for conversion of alcohols to alkyl halides, in which ethanol acts as a solvent and hydrochloric acid act as a catalyst.

Ethanol in molecular biology

Pure ethanol is used in molecular biology for extraction of DNA and RNA, array hybridization and in ethanol sedation assay.

HPLC grade ethanol

Absolute ethanol is used as solvent in reverse phase-HPLC as a mobile phase.

Spectrophotometric grade ethanol

In UV spectroscopy ethanol is used as a solvent, due to its low viscosity and transparency to UV light (200-400 nm), which means that ethanol does not absorb significant amounts of UV light, and thus allows the sample to be analysed without interference from the solvent.

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Related Applications

Thin Layer Chromatography

Thin layer chromatography (TLC) is a separation technique based on differential partitioning of compounds between a solid surface, coated with a thin layer of adsorbent, and a liquid solvent that moves over the solid surface by capillary action.

Small Molecule HPLC

Small molecules are ions and compounds of molecular weight typically less than 900 daltons. These compounds can be effectively separated and analyzed by HPLC, UHPLC and LC-MS using mainly silica particles or monolithic stationary phases with a broad range of column chemistries (modifications).

Large Molecule HPLC

High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) can be used to separate and identify different large biomolecules such as protein and peptides in a sample. It is based on the pumping of a sample with a solvent (mobile phase) through a column packed with sorbent material (stationary phase) at a high pressure.

Low Pressure Liquid Chromatography

Low pressure liquid chromatography (LPLC) is a chromatographic technique that operates at low pressures to drive the mobile phase onto the column containing a stationary phase by the action of a pump.