The Ministry of Industry and Trade has taken up the problem of methanol. The department has serious intentions to paint the killer alcohol so that it differs in color from ordinary alcohol and people stop drinking it, and alcohol counterfeiters do not use alcohol in production.
The idea of adding unpleasant tastes and odors to make methanol drinks disgusting is also being floated.
The issue of flavor or color marking of toxic methanol so that it is not confused with ethyl alcohol has been around for a long time. After all, at one time they were able to paint windshield wipers in pink, blue and green tones. There were a lot of arguments and conversations, but they did it. And the poisoning caused by them stopped. Why don’t they do this with methanol?
“The idea of coloring methanol itself is wonderful,” says aif.ru Doctor of Medical Sciences Alexander Nemtsov, he worked for many years at the Moscow Research Institute of Psychiatry of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, working on the problems of alcohol mortality and alcohol policy. “This would reduce poisoning by it to almost zero.” After all, as investigations show, they do not occur out of malicious intent. On the part of counterfeit manufacturers, this is greed and lack of culture; they cannot appreciate the danger of cheap alcohol. And on the part of consumers there is also lack of culture and poverty. To save money, they are ready to buy suspicious alcohol.
But the analogy between methanol and windshield wipers is very superficial from a chemical point of view. After all, the alcohols used for the latter are the final products. They are hardly used anywhere else. In contrast, methyl alcohol is very widely used in the chemical industry and science. And for these purposes it must be pure; additives will change its properties. In addition, methanol is widely exported abroad, and, according to requirements, it must also be pure. So the methanol problem is objectively very complex.”
Izvestia reports that the Ministry of Industry and Trade decided to approach this problem scientifically – to conduct additional research work (R&D) to determine the most suitable additive. But the question of using the additive is still open. Indeed, in analytical chemistry, and in a number of chemical industries, absolutely pure reagents are needed, including methanol.
Source: aif.ru
