Question

Is it possible to make a 100% ethanol solution, by volume?

Answer 1

Technically? No chemical you're going to be able to buy is going to be exactly 100% pure all the time no matter what the mass or volume ordered. Impurities are a real-world technicality.

That said, the simple answer is yes. In fact, it even has a name for it. It's called anhydrous ethanol.

Anhydrous ethanol, is some nasty stuff. It will dehydrate skin tissue, eyes, or mucus membranes, repeated or strong exposure can lead to severe medical conditions. And perhaps more importantly, with no water to slow things down, it is going form vapors faster than the watered-down ethanol you are used to and these vapors are quite explosive once they reach the correct flammability range. In other words, major fire hazard.

It is however frequently used in industry, and is labled as 200 Proof or \(\ge\)99.5% pure ethanol.

Answer 2

Certainly. But it's tricky and expensive, because ethanol is usually contaminated with water, and water and ethanol form an azeotrope at 96% ethanol, which means simple distillation, the obvious method of purification, stops working at 96%.

Answer 3

@Carl_Pham Not that's a fact I didn't know! Thanks! ;D Azeotrope eh?

Answer 4

I'll thank you both for the shareing of information. A person made me quite unsure about it could be done. I belived it could be done, atlest theoretical, becuase destillation follow a exponential function, then we could use some separation methods to the last point. But what made me unsure is, that there might just be a reaction equilibrium when we use the separation methods always leaving some water behind down to 1 ppm or something like that.