What is Denatured Alcohol?
I thought shellac thinner and denatured alcohol is the same thing. Right?
Alcohols are a class of organic compounds containing the hydroxyl group, OH, attached to a carbon atom. There are three basic classifications of alcohols: Monohydric, dihydric and trihydric. The classification is based on the existance of one, two or three hydroxol groups attched to their molecules. Further classifications are primary, secondary and tertiary, based on the number of carbon atoms bound. But all this doesn't answer your question.
In the consumer world, there two primary alcohols used extensively: Methanol and ethanol, both of which are monohydric. The most common is the ethanol which is the ingredient in your favorite beverages and in fuels. As most of us know, you can get pretty well pickled if you imbibe sufficient amounts of ethanol, or C2H5OH. Uncle sam makes a lot of money on tax income derived from the sale of drinkable ethanol.
When ethanol is used for other purposes, as a preservative or as a thinning compound or other use, it is "denatured" by adding a toxic substance to prevent it from being consumed. The addition of ingredient is based on a formula that would make rendering it potable more expensive than the cost of drinkable alcohol like good old college days Everclear. So there you have it. Denatured alcohol is "poisoned" ethanol. Durned shame to waste all that good drinking material, but that's Uncle Sam for ya.
Actually, the term "denatured" deals with the irreversable moleculear change in proteins by removal of substance or cleaving of bonds or both. The best example of this is to be had by boiling an egg. The white of the egg and the yolk, too, for that matter, change substance and the process cannot be reversed.
Your knowledge of paints and the like, impresses me. Years ago Grandpappy taught me how to make White lightining, the hard stuff. When letting the mash (corn chops, taters and apples, sugar and water) he always let it ferment, when the bubbling action slowed down, we cooked it off, condensing it thru 55 feet of copper tubing. His test to see its proof, was of course taste and the fact that table salt would ignite when the whiskey was poured on it. Why does it do this? I know its a chemical reaction, but it still baffles me. At a party two years ago we open the last keg, 35 year old, so smooth, now you know the rest of the story of that week.
I am afraid that I am just a biologizen wildlife artist who will have to defer this question to my son, a med student with a masters in Chemistry. I grew up in Kentucky and spent many summers and a few years in North Carolina and Tennessee. I am no stranger to good "branch water", myself. I have heard of the process you mentioned, but have never seen it first hand.
The fermentation process wherin simple sugars are turned into ethanol by yeast and other organisms, is C6H12O6->2C2H5OH. The mash is around 7-12 percent alcohol and is concentrated to around 90% by distillation. The distillate contains some ingredients other than water and ethanol. Salt (NaCl) contains chlorine. Dehydration of ethanol turns it into ether. Both substances can be volitile if the proper conditions occur at the molecular level.
The process you outline has either got something to do with bases and acids or reactions. Chemical kinetics require three things to occur at the molecular level for a reaction to occur: 1.) Molecules must collide. 2.) They must be positioned so that the reacting groups are together in a transition state between reactants and products. 3.) The collision must have enough energy to form the transition state and convert it into products. Fast reactions, such as rapid burning or explosions occur when these three criteria are easy to meet.
Rates of reaction can be speeded up in the presence of a catalyist.
An example would be the introduction of an accelrant such as powdered platinum into a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. I don't recall the entire process, but it has something to do with the slowing down of the water molecules due to absorbtion by the platinum. The oxygen then reacts violently with the hydrogen, colliding with them and forming water. Something in the mix is causing some serious colliding of molecules. What, exactly, I don't know.
It is a little like women, John, I know all about them, but just can't quite figure them out. I will post the answer when the smart side of the family answers my email.