I’m a chemistry teacher (and a chemist) and my principal just asked me to analyze a bottle of Powerade to see if it has any ethanol. A quick sniff says no, but I need to know for sure.
The State Police can’t help, so it’s up to me.
Is there any simple, easy test to detect the presence of ethanol?
Bear in mind I only have access to limited chemicals and very little lab equipment.
A quick web search turned up nothing useful.
Try to burn it. Ethanol volatises into flammable vapors.
How about reading the label?
Failing that go down to your local police deptmartment and chug a bottle and ask them to put you on the breathaliser?
Failing that find a college lab with a gas comatagraph. (which I’m sure I screwed up the spelling on)
Try distilling it. Surely you’ve got equipment to do that? The key is not to boil the mixture, but heat it, as I’m sure you know. Run the process a couple times; after a few cycles, you ought to be able to smell alcohol if any measureable quantity is present.
I had actually considered drinking it and having a breathalizer test, but the bottle has been opened. It was confiscated from a student.
I am going to try a dichromate assay I found, but it requires a spectrophotometer, which of course I don’t have. I think there will be a visible color change, though.
If that fails, I will have to try the distillation thing QED suggested.
BTW, this is just to see if it is worth the expense sending it out for real testing. Like I said, I couldn’t smell anything.
If the solution is mixed with acidified potassium dichromate solution, there should be a colour change from orange to green.
Hazy memory, mind.
I suspect that the sugars in Powerade could also reduce dichromate and give a false positive. Perhaps suspending a bit of dichromate in the vapors above a warmed pot of the drink would give a less ambiguous result.
http://www.uq.edu.au/_School_Science_Lessons/topic15.html#15.2.11
OK Here’s the results. I tried pretty much everything suggested here, plus I bought some new Powerade and added ethanol to it so I could compare the smells.
No alcohol. The kid’s off the hook. I’m not sure what the big deal was, maybe a probation issue.
Anyway, thanks for all your help!
Man, If you thought it tested positive and the kid got in trouble for it, I could see a whoppin’ lawsuit coming down the pike.
No way should a high school chemist with inadequate equipment be used to make a decision on whether or not a kid gets seriously punished.
As an old high school chemistry teacher, I would have said “I can’t do it reliably”
Your principal doesn’t understand what is required to do that level of science.
Yeah, we thought of that. Teachers are probably as paranoid about lawsuits as doctors are. What a wonderful age we live in.
I believe I mentioned that this was just to see if it was worth sending it out for testing.