OT: Hand Sanitizer

the answer to why

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

FDA has not, and apparently will not, approve "fuel" ethanol for hand sanitizer. The plants would have to do something different, I don' t know details, to make an approved product. What ever it is must be uneconomic to do so.

That said, gobs of ethanol is made from ethane from hydraulically fractured shale gas wells. Probably some regulatory hurdle here too.

Brazil makes food grade ethanol by fermentation. Don't know why this source is not used...maybe it is.

I suspect hand sanitizer is a low profit item and few are willing to invest the money to modify equipment to make an FDA approved material.

Would I used "fuel" ethanol....without hesitation.

Something of an aside.....

Barry Irby

My friend's daughter is a nurse in the Covid 19 ward of a local hospital and they have been reduced to a single mask a week where they used to go through many a day. The local city (Richmond, VA) gave 10,000 mask and other PPE to homeless and indigent people. Henrico County gave out 15,000 masks in similar program. (I am sorry, but there is something wrong with this)

Turns out the hospital(s) has a contract with a supplier of PPE and they are unable to increase the supply. They Hospital is unwilling to go outside the contract. Some things make you go HMMM???

Why

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

Betcha it's because a) they don't want people drinking the stuff and/or outside of actual fuel use, they'd miss the heavy tax on ethanol.

"Bartender! I'll take a double Purell on the rock."

Think that may be why they use "rub" (isopropanol) to make sanitizer.

nothing to do with ATF

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

It is an FDA issue as stated above. This claim is not speculation.

That is correct

Tim Greif - West of Chicago

This is all FDA driven, albeit illogical in my opinion. It seems the issue is the perceived impurities of the fuel ethanol product. One large ethanol distiller has decided to undertake the changes needed at a couple plants. The alcohol has to be further distilled to meet pharmaceutical grade standards. And then it needs to be mixed with other ingredients to make hand sanitizer. And then it needs to be taken to a bottling facility, which has not been something they’ve ever done in the past. All this to comply with regs on purity.

Look folks, we aren't consuming this as nourishment. We're trying to mnake it into much needed hand sanitizer. And here's the misguided FDA saying "if you won't make it our way suitable for consumption, we'll just let all those folks out there go without hand sanitizer".

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