Substitutes for Ethyl Alcohol

Formulating

Substitutes for Ethyl Alcohol

Posted by Avirock on May 8, 2017 at 10:37 am

hello every one. I have make hand sanitizer with 70% of Ethyl Alcohol .
but i just find that Ethyl Alcohol is a Toxic Ingredients can any buddy tell us that any Substitutes for Ethyl Alcohol in hand sanitizer.

Any piece of advice, suggestion or hint to get a Substitutes for Ethyl Alcohol is most appreciated.

Thanks

OldPerry replied 7 years ago 8 Members · 11 Replies
11 Replies

Bill_Toge

Member
May 8, 2017 at 11:47 am

any active ingredient in a hand sanitiser will be toxic to microbes, simply because the entire purpose of a hand sanitiser is to kill microbes

if it doesn’t kill microbes, it’s not a hand sanitiser
em88

Member
May 8, 2017 at 11:58 am

The only issue with alcohol would be that it dries the skin, other than that it should be ok…
johnb

Member
May 8, 2017 at 1:21 pm

The world seems to be full of different brands of hand sanitiser.

Are you certain you want to enter this very overcrowded market?
OldPerry

Member
May 8, 2017 at 9:38 pm

@em88 - there is little scientific evidence that alcohol dries the skin.
Chemist77

Member
May 11, 2017 at 5:26 am

And there are certain humectants which can be added to counter the drying and plasticizing the resin in the formulation. In premium segments, Ucon Fluid 75-H-450 is one of my favorites.
johnb

Member
May 11, 2017 at 7:12 am

Resin in hand sanitizers?

These products are made as cheap as possible to be able to get a position on a VERY oversubscribed product platform.

OK, it may be feasible (just) to aim at a “luxury” consumer market but this is tiny compared with the marketplace available in healthcare - where there seems to be a queue of salesmen at their doors touting their “better” hand sanitizer.

There is a similar situation with gel lubricants - large numbers of sales personnel (possibly the same ones trying to sell hand sanitizers) offering gel lubricants for various scanner uses - and a lot of the products (I have on good authority*) are very poor quality.

*One of the “authorities” is myself having been on the receiving end of one of these non-lubricating lubricants during an echo cardiogram investigation a few months ago. The technician began the procedure a second time using and established product - KY Jelly.
vjay

Member
May 11, 2017 at 7:27 am

You can also try Iso Propyl Alcohol.

Add moisturiser to reduce dryness.
johnb

Member
May 11, 2017 at 7:28 am

People object to the odour of IPA in more than extremely small amounts.
Chemist77

Member
May 11, 2017 at 8:36 am

@johnb by resin I meant acrylic polymers and likewise, didn’t want to mislead.
chemicalmatt

Member
May 12, 2017 at 7:55 pm

…what Bill Toge said, and I always admire how Bill is always so politely glib about these things (even when stating the obvious, eh, Bill?) That said - and it IS obvious - we need to answer Avirock’s original question here: there is no realistic substitute for SDA in it’s role in personal care formulation as a solvent, or as a safe-to-use bacteriostat. I mean, you can apply phenol if you want to, but that will get you into trouble. Reminds me of when the U.S. reduced SDA usage in products to 55%, and hair spritz customers would ask “Can you make it so it still dries just as fast?” Me: “Uhhhh…..no.”
OldPerry

Member
May 14, 2017 at 1:10 pm

@chemicalmatt - well, you can make it dry as fast, you just need to use Propellant 152A which, although it is a volatile hydrocarbon, was exempted from the CARB rules. Tresemme hair spray does this.