The Process of Making Alcohol

The Process of Making Alcohol

  • Submitted By: twentyfive
  • Date Submitted: 03/14/2009 12:31 AM
  • Category: Science
  • Words: 971
  • Page: 4
  • Views: 536

It seemed that in our generation today, the word ‘alcohol’ is most likely to be interpreted as its negative meaning. Instead of recognizing it as pure alcohol or ethyl alcohol, most people would identify it as a chemical substance that most teenagers these days drink to relieve their depression in life. Although they are the same substance of alcohol, there is also a difference that distinguishes the similarity of both. Ethyl alcohol is a pure 99% alcohol and 1% water that are most often used as a cleaner or an antiseptic that can kill bacteria. On the other side, the negative meaning of alcohol is a mixture of the pure substance itself with another aqueous substance that can be anything drinkable such as fruits flavors. The process of making this substance called alcohol is time-consuming because it has to go through a process called the fermentation. Fermented vegetables, fruits or grains will produce alcohol because the yeasts or bacteria have changed the sugars in the food into alcohol (Eugene Shatz).

In total, there are 6 Hydrogen molecules, 2 Carbon molecules and 1 Oxygen molecule in alcohol. All of these molecules made up alcohol but only the last two letters on the right hand which are O-H gave the chemical properties to alcohol. The chemical bond between those molecules is shown by the hyphen sign on the simple picture above. During the fermentation, the sugar in the food reacts in a way with an enzyme from the yeast that forms a chemical equation below.
C6H12O6 2CH3CH2OH + 2CO2 (Prof. Shakhashiri)
Sugar Alcohol + Carbon Dioxide gas
Glucose Ethanol
(Overall chemistry of fermentation)
As we can see in the equation above, there is a form of Carbon dioxide gas produced during the fermentation and the rest of the molecules form another compound which is the Ethanol.

In today’s world, people don’t need much of pure alcohol anymore. In most times, people use alcohol as a form of mixture with other solution such as variety...

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