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I have about 200ml of methylated spirits and 500ml of 100% isopropyl alcohol that I want to mix together in a plastic drink bottle. I will use it for fuel in an alcohol burning stove while camping. I can't seem to find any other information about mixing them so...

  1. Is it safe to do so?
  2. Is a clear plastic drink bottle OK to keep them in? (worried about melting the bottle - adverse reaction)
  3. If it is safe to mix them, will I end up with a more flammable mix?

Thanks for any help!

matt_black
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Brent Leslie
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    What is methylated spirit ? You may mean methylalkohol aka methanol. I would avoid a plastic drink bottle to prevent some health endangering accidental drinking, if other persons get hand on it. Or mark it very obviously as not drinkable. If people can drink acids, they can drink this as well. – Poutnik Dec 16 '20 at 11:30
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    @Poutnik Methylated spirit is a common name (at least in some anglo saxon countries) for cheap solutions of ethanol. To avoid making this a cheap source of drinkable ethanol (which needs to be taxed and food-safe), it is usually denatured with methanol (making it toxic), coloured with a strong dye (to make it visually obvious it isn't drinkable) and has a strong bitter flavour (often bitrex) added to make sure you know immediately it should not be drunk. – matt_black Dec 16 '20 at 12:00
  • No reason to mix it at first. This is pedantic, because I would mix them :) after being sure that a methylated spirit is indeed denatured ethyl alcohol. But normally flammables should be kept in smaller portion, if their use allows that. And this is your case. – Alchimista Dec 16 '20 at 12:03
  • @matt_black Well, it should come to my mind, but for some reasons it did not. I know methanol is used for ethanol denaturation for some fine technical applications, but I am rather used for quite nasty denaturating staff, used for combustion purposes, propably including the bitrex you have mentioned. – Poutnik Dec 16 '20 at 12:13
  • As both ethanol and isopropanol have similar boiling point, it would be compatible. Isopropanol would have somewhat better heating power, having bigger molecule and lower relative oxygen content. – Poutnik Dec 16 '20 at 12:16
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    A drinking bottle is not a good option, someone could mistake it for something to drink. Use an appropriate container. – Martin - マーチン Dec 17 '20 at 00:38
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    I'm not at all sure why this has been closed, especially as "opinion based". It is a fairly simple question about chemical safety and not an issue about personal preferences or opinion. – matt_black Dec 17 '20 at 12:17
  • @Martin-マーチン While you are broadly correct, especially if the bottle has an existing label for a soft drink, it is somewhat moot as methylated spirits has routinely been sold in many countries in the same sort of bottles though with appropriate labelling. Also the ingredients are designed to prevent accidental ingestion. – matt_black Dec 17 '20 at 12:20
  • What are the two alcohols in at the moment? As for mixing, not an issue. – Beerhunter Dec 18 '20 at 23:18
  • It is technically safe to burn the mixture. Be prepared fuel enriched by isopropylalkohol will need more air to burn and the flame will be more yellow and "sooty", possibly staining the camping gear bottom, because of the longer carbon atom chain. All depends, if the stove is burning pure vapors, or vapours premixed with air. The mentioned issue is not much of a problem for the latter, if there is possible to manipulate fuel:air ratio. – Poutnik Dec 20 '20 at 15:33

1 Answers1

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Yes, as far chemical safety is the concern. No dangerous reactions nor dangerous phenomena will occur. The mixture, a solution to be more precise, will retain at least qualitatively the properties of the two components, eg will be a disinfectant, a flammable liquid, a solvent, and so on.

Flammable materials are better stored in separated containers in separated places.

For the case in question, going camping with two small bottles or one double sized bottle in the backpack won't make any real difference.

Alchimista
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