Methanol Purging

How about this?:
1. Pour out all liquid, or as nearly so as possible.
2. Fill 90% with water, and slosh it around well.
3. Repeat for as many dilutions as deemed necessary.

If the (mostly dry) container can be heated above the boiling point of methanol, that too will help.

how about boiling water poured into the dry containers. Thanks Tornado, do you think using these containers for emergency water storage is a good idea?

This should work pretty well. I'm not sure, but I think the boiling point of water is higher than that of methanol; so this ought to do a good job of getting rid of the residual methanol. Unless I am missing something, these containers should be usable for water storage.

It is. They can.

From memory..- the FLASH point of Methanol is 72F !! NO- apparently it's 54F.

When you read about it..it's nasty stuff. Including "Do Not attempt to clean empty containers since residue is difficult to remove."

And I used to make dyestuffs from it, standing over a small pot holding about 15 litres, and continually stirring. Used to get 'bombed' doing that !

Do you have a source for "Do Not attempt to clean empty containers since residue is difficult to remove."? Does this source explain the nature of the difficulty?

Look at Garthh's posting # 10 re:- methanol info. That's where the "Do Not attempt to clean empty containers since residue is difficult to remove." comment came from.

That made for some odd reading.

SAF-T-DATA rated methanol 3 (severe) as a health hazard; NFPA rated it 1.

Rubber gloves were recommended; but elsewhere it said methanol degrades some types of rubber.

It stated that ethanol is miscible with water. Then why would it be hard to remove residues from containers, as also stated? And further, if the residue is hard to remove, how do harmful quantities get into water that may later be held in the container?

Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?

I would like to add, that writing an MSDS is an excercise in CYA. Why would you get accurate or reliable information from something like that?

Residues my a$$!

The goings on about the subject of this thread are ridiculous. Let the containers dry out until you can no longer smell MeOH. Then, if you must, fill one with water, allow it to sit for a week, and analyze (with controls of course). If it's less than the allowance for MeOH in the type of water being stored, you're there.

Why do we make things so complicated?

It's like this:

Dioxin is the most toxic substance known to man.
Nerve gas is the most toxic substance known to man.
Plutonium is the most toxic substance known to man.
Etc.

Of course, all of these toxic substances are stored in leaky drums buried in your back yard.

Time to head for the hills, Chicken Little.

But the radiation you get up there is more than a nuke plant gives off. Can't win!

Actually, I think I was heating methylated spirits NOT methanol - to make dyestuffs.

I'd be a little leary of using these for potable water, even after cleaning. If using for drinking water you might consider using some kind of plastic liner.

Just a thought.

Methanol boils at 149°F, if there's any left.

If we assume that a pristine container is safe for drinking water, and you want to be sure you have all the methanol out of the container, just pour some ethanol in each dry container and slosh that around and then pour it out. It's safe, even fun sometimes, to drink and would carry any residual methanol away with it. Rinse a couple of times with water and there you go.

But, wouldn't all the methanol have evaporated anyway?

Excuse me but does anybody here know what kind of a container held this water/methanol mix? Was it

Maybe it is one of these varieties of containers. Maybe this is an Apache container. It would also be nice to know if the water storage is for potable water, grey or black water.

You've completely ignored the CR4 rule #14 section 2 on the rules for posting. Here it is again for you to consider:

• Provide as much information as possible. The most frustrating questions on CR4 are like this one: "I need a sensor to test water flow - which is the best one." What are you testing for and what are you trying to determine? Is it in a stream, a pipe, or an aquifer? Are you looking to measure velocity or mass? Are you testing for particulates, mineral concentration, or pollution? Is it wastewater, potable water, slurry, etc.? The more you let us know, the better the chance that someone on the site will be able to help you find an answer.

http://beprepared.com/images/135/WS-B080.jpg here is a link of a similar container. The containers I have stored AWI fluid, this fluid ( methanol/deionized water) is used for aviation use.

Carboys eh

what was the concentration of methanol?

I'm not familiar with that use

assuming a low concentration

you can probably leave them out in the hot sun empty with the lids off for a few days

the good ol boy antidote for methanol poisoning is to flush it out of your system with some ethanol I like mine over some ice

methanol will melt your optic nerve... it's nasty shyt

"Carboys"? That's disturbing enough to end my lurking.

AWI is 'alcohol water injection' (fluid) for takeoff power boost. link.^{_{(also been discussed on CR4)}}

But I don't know exactly what is in it.

Knowing the industries, both aviation and chemical suppliers, I'd be looking for the Standard analysis (and for list of approved additives), before assuming it is just methanol and water.

I would also like to know the required purity of both. The approved storage time, anything on degradation of bottle and/or contents. If refilling/reuse is prohibited.

All of which could point to some degradation or alteration in the bottle.

I'd also like to know the particular plastics' absorption/retention % of all 'ingredients'.

Or, given the methanol is principally 'anti freeze' - what's in there is not necessarily methanol, or potable water

Just my 2¢

I wouldn't touch it if it's military

The military doesn't have to follow the same rules for chemicals & safety

So a container for MeOH, repurposed for water storage.

Are you really going to drink from an anti-freeze can, a container which held a toxic liquid? Wash your dishes? Water your survival garden?

As redfred points out in his colorful image, we don't really have a lot to go on.

Empty containers. Leave in sun to warm up Connect a long hose to reach the bottom of container, connect to a domestic vacuum cleaner, evacuate. After about five air changes. Rinse with water and use. This procedure is followed when any welding has to be done on tanks used for storing combustible solvents.

While methanol is toxic, the residue left after this should be below permissible limits.

http://www.epa.gov/chemfact/s_methan.txt

Bioramani

at any temperature above 55°f methanol starts evaporating,

but methanol will soften many plastics, so there could easily be other compounds besides methanol leaching into the water over time

I just priced a liner for a steel tank, it was cheaper to buy a new plastic tank

here's some more methanol info

at any temperature above 55°f methanol starts evaporating

Where do you get that? Anything that has a vapor pressure will evaporate. At 55 ºC methanol is already evaporating like crazy, with a VP of 522.5 mmHg.

At 0 ºC it has a VP of 30.65 mmHg. It is even evaporating then.

but methanol will soften many plastics

Maybe many species, put very few types.

Maybe you need to hire a good ChemE (like me). I'm getting bored where I am anyway.

P.S. I find an MSDS to be one of the least reliable documents as to a chemical's nature and behavior that there is.

I'm going by the seat of my pants, personal point of comfort

above 13°c the amount of evaporation increases

time to open the door, kick on the fans, be aware

of course at 130°f, I'm looking for an olive & some vermouth & hoping I don't get pulled over on the drive home

I would not use it for potable water at all. Even after purging, there remains a good chance that some residual methanol is trapped in the crystal lattice structure of the container.

When purging tanks for welding in an industrial setting, there have been personnel killed because the chemical was released back into the vessel and asphixiated the worker, or ignited even though it was alleged to have been thoroughly cleaned.

It would be better to purchase a new clean vessel approved for potable water than to find out the hard way that this is not a good idea. Better safe than sorry.

While I advocate reusing materials that would otherwise end up in a landfill, I would be leery about it's reuse for potable water. While there is a good chance that all it has ever held is the water/ethanol mixture, you just never know. Also a very good point was made about other chemicals leaching out of the plastic. For your intended use I would buy new, and certified...........good luck.

Hello

This is Arun Kumar from India, i would like to share a solution for this issue, being a chemical Engineer i have worked for such kind of problems.

As we knew that both Methanol and water are crazy solvents which gets easily miscible with each other and they are really hard to separate because they have closer boiling points and much volatile substance which tends to vanish in air like petrol when kept open and even easily iginted when exposed to higher temperature. This can be separated in orderly fashion using fine vaccum distillation or Azeotropic Distillation where you can separate MEOH and H2O when intially passing the vol of mixture in reccuperator (initial heater. Here the temperature is maintained at 50°C and vaccum of 420mm Hg) and Next Evaporator (where the temperature is maintained to 65°C and vaccum of around 750 mm Hg) remaining traces are seperated using absorbtion unit . All the section is interconnected with recirculation lines and condensed in order to get efficient separation. If You find traces you can re distill the volume , so that the MEOH content is totally free from water and then you can calibrate with maximum repeation of MEOH content analysis in Labs to study the cost of separating the mixture which would make none profit when MEOH is sold but You can use to store water for drinking purpose that too only after confirmation from lab analysis but for other than fire usage because Methanol in water can cause eye blindness and tends to malfunction of vital organs in human body.

Note: Boiling point Water 100 °C and MEOH 65°C

1 dry method. Methanol does evaporate completely, so all you need is to blow air through the container until it has all evaporated and there will be nothing left to bother you. So if this is a small container, this is easy. I would empty it mechanically first. If this is a larger tank, this will also work, just empty it first by draining it.

2 wet method. Water and methanol are miscible in all proportions, so repeated water rinsing will work, for example, if you have a 1 cubic meter container and it has 5 ml of methanol in it and you add 100 ml of water and rotate it so all surfaces are wetted by the water (rinsed), then empty and repeat, after 4-5 rinsings you will soon get to a very low level of methanol. With a huge container, tank car, etc, you will need to spray all surfaces with the rinse water, drain and repeat.

5 rinses with 100 ml are better than one rinse with 500 ml, because it is the number of times that you wash and clear the surface that counts.

You are lucky, the LD 50 of methanol is about 5 grams per kilogram, so it gets below toxic levels quickly.

A real poison, like cyanide is about .001 gram per kilogram, so a cyanide solution would need more exchanges.

I might risk myself. Use it as a rain barrel for watering the plants. For washing dishes at a camp site...sure. But potable water for my families consumption, no. Not for any long term (more than 12 hours) storage. If it was straight methanol I might say "fine", but methanol is a solvent which can pick up all sorts of contaminants, many of which are much worse than the possibly miniscule amounts of methanol which might be trapped in the pores of the plastic. You will never get it all out of the plastic.

I would rather re-use old garbage cans than an old chemical tank! YMMV

Unless the container material is porous/permeable, I'm sure that any residual methanol could be reduced to well below dangerous levels, by the various means described so far.

However, some regulatory systems might not recognize this. If you have a local law/regulation that prohibits reusing for potable water any containers that have ever contained methanol, then you can't do it.

In the world of environmental chemistry, there is no such thing as absolutely zero contaminants/residues. But there are usually ways to remove/reduce/dilute such traces to much less than hazardous levels.

First off, the container in question must have been suitable for potable water when it was unused and new. It is unlikely that you are correct about the storage purpose of these containers, as plastic is considered unsuitable for storage of methanol or even methanol/water mixtures. see

That being said

If you can water wet interior surfaces, drain fluid, forced warm air dry, 3-5 cycles will provide safety with methanol contamination. If, however, there may have been other substances, such as pesticides, insecticides, solvents, this will not likely remove them with enough confidence to declare them potable. You must KNOW that the containers only contained this methanol mix.

This desire to remove an residual trace of methanol is a waste of time, methanol is not very toxic - a few successive water rinses will suffice. If the methanol is not pure and carries other organics it will smell, and you can remove all organics with a few rinses with acetone, which is in turn removed with a number of water rinses(it is miscible). Just rotate the contained so all surfaces are wetted and then discard, repeat a few times, and then leave it in the sunshine for a few hours

As I stated in my first post, there's nothing left to be toxic after awhile, it's all gone.

Below are tables from two different MSDS for methanol:

Section 9 Physical and Chemical Properties

I would just like to restate this is AWI fluid - the composition is being assumed throughout this "focus on methanol"

"Traditionally, the main additive is 10% methanol, giving rise to the term 'methylated spirit'. Other typical additives include isopropyl alcohol, acetone, methyl ethyl ketone, methyl isobutyl ketone, and denatonium." (Wiki)

As said; you can't take "methanol" on face value as 'pure' anything.

MEK is nice stuff though

Spirits is the term used for ethanol, when it is denatured with methanol, it is called methylated spirits. Each industrial use of ethanol has a denaturant to make it taste and smell bad so people will not drink it, but this denaturant must be inert to the industrial process, so there are dozens of them

methylated spirits

"this denaturant must be inert to the industrial process, so there are dozens of them"

Well, not exactly. The principal ones are denatonium benzoate and denatonium saccharide. A tiny %

The other things mentioned in my (Wiki) link ^{_{(you re-posted)}}, are 'methanol volume' additives, or substitutes, to reach the '10% tax category' conveniently.

Without the denaturant 10% methanol still tastes and smells like vodka / moonshine.

But with the denaturant - you can put anything you like in it and any amount over 10%

The question with AWI is "what else did they feel like putting in?"

As said in 20 I don't know.

And to my tiny K9 mind - answering that is kinda key to the OP Question (and subsequent revelations)

We're all the way up to 33 replies here and we still don't know what the initial fluid was, what the container is made of, or how this container will be re-purposed.

"An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition."

"No it isn't."

Container worth $30 when new

formally used for something from the airport, probably some small percentage of proprietary ingredients.

I'm not in a hurry to drink out of it no matter what has been done the reprocess it

The OP talked about "emergency water storage" so naturally we have to assume the worst case

someone tell me why this thread is much different than a "guest" thread

$30 ! ripoff!

(woof)

Fine $20 & probably more like this

in a box, so it stacks better

still not thirsty

ok let me add that the awi fluid mix is 30% methanol and 70% water

If you didn't mix it yourself then you don't really know what else was in it.

this particular 30/70 mix was made especially for the aircraft I work on. Methanol and deionzied water only. Again this is used for aviation purposes.

No chemical engineer ever intended you to consume that product. So no chemical engineer made absolutely sure there was no adulterant in the methanol. This container is not rated to be food safe in any case.

If it was just methanol...I would say fine, sure. But you don't know what was in that vat when it was made and what else was dissolved in this powerful solvent.

Around here, we get industrial barrels which used to contain olives, or other food stuffs, and we use them for rain barrels. They are really cheap...in the fifteen dollar range. Why would you assume any risk to save fifteen bucks?

You seem remarkably convinced that the "methanol" is "pure" and "deionized water" is potable.

It's as if you are determined to block out all advice to the contrary.

So; I suggest the following;

Wash out and aerate two containers, until you are satisfied they are "clean".

Fill one with triple distilled water and cap the empty one.

Place both in a warm place or in the sun.

At the end of a month; take an air sample from one and a water sample from the other

(sniffing cautiously for solvent smell at this point may answer your question)

Send both samples to a Lab for a full analysis (not just CH₃OH)

If neither soluble or aromatic contaminants exceed safe levels - then by all means, use the containers for potable water - stored in a cool place.

In light of this response, do most people rinse dishes three times?

You still do not understand our concerns here. I asked earlier for a clarification of what I felt were three critical points that will determine if you are being frugal or foolish. You have answered two of those questions but not to a sufficient precision that we do not need to know the answer of the third question.

1. What was the initial fluid? You've answered that this is a 30/70 mix of methanol and water used for aviation purposes of AWI. (Probably this is Alcohol Water Injection but that is obviously a guess.) The toxicity of this mixture guarantees that the manufacturer does not comply with potable water standards in their fabrication of this product and its vessel.

2. What is the container made of? To this question you provide a link to a picture of the container. From this picture nobody can guess what the type of blue plastic was used. Certainly this plastic will not be one of the few plastics that methanol will degrade. We do not know if this plastic will leach any nasty chemicals into potable water or if bacteria could thrive on this plastic in the absence of methanol.

3. How will this container be re-purposed? This critical question has yet to be answered but many here have assumed that this is for potable water. If instead this container will replace the tank of a commode for the flushing of a toilet then all other concerns are moot. Similarly if this container will just be catching rain water for use in a decorative garden, then there is no problem here.

Regardless of how well this container can be washed out though, I would never use this type of a container for potable water. This container does not come with a permanent marking or label that indicates that it is a food grade container. Getting into the habit of consuming anything from one non-food grade container promotes an eventual poisoning from drinking from either another unwashed container or a container that still contains AWI fluid in it. (Oh, if you say that the AWI fluid is anything but a clear liquid so you won't mistake this for water, then its not purely a 30/70 mixture.)