Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Concentrating ethanol without distillation

Clonejeffie - 23-2-2017 at 19:08

I would like to know if there are any other ways of concentrating ethanol than distilling. For example could i add salt or sugar to 10-18% freshly fermented alcohol to separate it into layers.

Edit: descriptive title

[Edited on 2-24-2017 by zts16]

ahill - 23-2-2017 at 22:14

yeah - that (separating into layers) doesn't work.

Freezing does.

Freeze till it gets slushy, then sieve the ice out - the icy bit will be a much lower percentage than the liquid bit.

If you live in a place where it gets freezy outside, this can be a low energy way of getting high % alcohol.

You'll need to repeat more than a couple of times tho..

Clonejeffie - 24-2-2017 at 06:10

Ahill thanks. It's not very cold out where I live but I do have a freezer in my room