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Pesticides in 190 proof ethanol?
I have a formula that contains ethanol as well as using it for herbal extraction and want to know if I need to buy certified organic ethanol in order to avoid the pesticides that could be used in growing the corn, wheat, sugar, etc used in making the ethanol. Does anyone know if during the ethanol distillation process the pesticides are removed? I think this depends upon the boiling point of various pesticides which I have found to be quite high and therefore likely to be “left behind” during distillation. But I want to be 100 % sure that there are no pesticides in the ethanol I use in the formula as well as in the solvent I use to for herbal extractions. Thanks for your input.
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6 Replies
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I think you are looking for problems that don’t exist.
If you do have particular concerns you could pass the alcohol through a bed of charcoal.
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Organic farming uses pesticides too so there is no reason to think certified organic ethanol would be better. But like @johnb implied, this is a highly improbable problem.
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I did not realize pesticides could be filtered out with charcoal. That is great news. Thanks for sharing as the organic ethanol is about 3x more expensive than the non-organic. Thanks for your input.
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Before embarking on the removal of pesticides (or any other contaminants) from your ethanol you must analyse the material to ensure the contaminant is actually present.
As I mentioned previously, I think you are looking for problems which don’t exist. It is much more likely that there will be much more pesticide residues in the vegetable matter you are extracting than there will ever be in ethanol.
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I have distilled ethanol on a small production basis (no don’t ask where). The temperature range at which the product is produced is limited to about 1 degree variance depending on the vessel pressure and it is highly unlikely that heavier molecules would distil off. What remains is heavier alcohols and byproducts. It is more important to eliminate the known serious toxin, methanol.
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Thank you for your comments and thoughts. I appreciate Belassi’s comment about the issue with methanol being more important than pesticides. I agree with this.
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