Gasohol

"Denny" wrote in message oups.com...


Your alka seltzer fizzes in water. It all by itself does not detect alcohol...

And now for the rest of the story....

Step 1....
Got a clean urine sample cup - meaning unused...
Using a sterile syringe I added 1.5cc of denatured alcohol (S-L-X
brand) from a previously opened can, which will have an unknown % of
absorbed water vapor, to the sample cup...
Dropped in a small chunk of Alka Seltzer Original...
Faint fizzing noted - you will have to be gimlet eyed to see it - but
it does fizz... So, we can assume that "pure" alcohol ( a weak
organic acid that always contains absorbed water) will 'fizz' Alka-
Seltzer (contains bicarb of soda) if a bit faintly...

Step 2....
Added 0.4 cc of warm weak tea ( it was handy) in 0.1cc increments...
Fizzing rate essentially doubled, or a bit more, by the time I reached
the 0.4 cc value... Easy to see... This is 26% imbibed water in the
alcohol... Dunno what effect the pH of the tea had - I assume that
word that it might enhance the fizzing from the bicarb...

**** the intellectual reason for the tea besides it being in my hand
is that water condensed on a metallic surface will be weakly
acidic****

Step 3...
Dumped the liquid from the cup and added a dash of tap water...
Fizzing about tripled the rate from Step 2...


Alka-Seltzer does not fizz explosively, like Arm&Hammer bicarbonate of
soda would because it is buffered with citric acid... you will need
to google on buffering and rate of reactions to understand some of
that

Unfortunately, for scientific rigor, I do not have any so called
gasoline handy to test with... I have one minute to start seeing
patients and I suspect they will not be impressed of I reek of the
nasty crap they sell for gas these days...

denny


Thanks Denny, good post, esp. the "so called gasoline" comment...