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Make pure alcohol?

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Rickpatbrown

Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2008
Any chemist out there know if the calcium chloride that they use for melting snow would suffice as a drying agent for 90% alcohol?

Is this pointless since 90% alcohol can dry electrical components well enough if you get water on them?
 
if were talking isopropyl alcohol then i have some rexall brand at 99% it was about 3.99 at pharma plus or shoppers drug mart.
 
95% is the highest level of purity you can obtain from distillation with ethyl alcohol (not sure about isopropyl). Calcium chloride (anhydrous) has a high affinity for water. If you add the CaCl to the 95% alcohol, it will "dry" it by absorbing the water -> 100% alcohol after filter the CaCl.

The stuff at the drug store is 91% isopropyl alcohol, 9% water and costs about $1.25. Snow melt is cheap too. Mix and filter and you have 100% isopropyl. The link above has pure alcohol for $25 for a liter!

That is if the snow melt CaCl is as pure as what we use in the lab. I have a feeling though that snow melt contains some other impurities that might royally F*#@ up your electronics after you dissolve it in the alcohol. Also the snow melt might not be anhydrous, but it should be dry enough. You might have to use a little more.

The big question is weather this would be worth it. My guess is that for the purpose of cleaning parts and drying electrical components, 90% is sufficient and the extra purity would not help enough.

But than again, we're talking about people who spend hundreds of dollars and modify expensive equipment jsut to get a couple extra Mhz out of a processor!
 
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Canda has all the good stuff like 99% pure alcohol and strike anywhere matches.

Not that those two should be used at the same time :mad:
 
I forgot, is it Isopropyl that I want to liberally pour all over my motherboard when I am fed up and want to clean the hell out of it? *note the motherboard is not in the computer and connected to anything else so I am not entirely insane.. just mostly
 
how dirty can the motherboard be? did you mount it on your mountain bike? did u use it as a skid plate on your last offroading excursion? wont compressed air suffice?
 
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