Re: Isopropyl alcohol

John Taylor [The Banshee] (rphjt@minyos.xx.rmit.OZ.AU)
Mon, 16 Aug 93 09:24:30 +0000

>Rob Maharajh, the chemist, has told me that the burning is due to a kind
>of frost damage produced by the vaporizing alcohol (like the chilling
>you get from acetone and other organic compounds). I find this hard
>to believe, but I'm no chemist.

The other possibilities are the removal of water or oils from the plant. When
I use isopropyl alcohol at work for cleaning, it does remove skin oils but not
as bad as acetone. I prefer to use good ol' ethanol and resort to the others
as a last resort (especially acetone...). I can't see why ethanol couldn't
be used instead of isopropanol for killing pests, except that you can only get
it as "Metho" off-the-shelf with it's poisonous/smelly additives.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| John Taylor [The Banshee] | Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology |
| rphjt@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au | Department of Applied Physics |
| MOKING IS A HEALTH HAZARD. | Melbourne, Victoria, AUSTRALIA |
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