Butanone is produced in large quantities. Nearly half of it is used in paints and other coatings because it will quickly evaporate. It dissolves many substances and is used as a solvent in processes involving gums, resins, cellulose acetate and nitrocellulose coatings and in vinyl films. It is also used in the synthetic rubber industry.
The known health effects to people from exposure to butanone are slight irritation of the nose, throat, skin, and eyes. There are no known cases of any humans dying from breathing butanone alone. It is basically harmless. However, if butanone is breathed along with other chemicals that damage health, it can increase the amount of damage that occurs.
Serious health effects in animals have been seen only at very high levels. When breathed, these effects included birth defects (Schwetz et al. 1991. Fund. Appl. Toxicol. 16:742-748), loss of consciousness, and death. When swallowed, rats had nervous system effects including drooping eyelids and uncoordinated muscle movements.
Methanol is produced naturally in the anaerobic metabolism of many varieties of bacteria. As a result, there is a small fraction of methanol vapor in the atmosphere. Over the course of several days, atmospheric methanol is oxidized by oxygen with the help of sunlight to carbon dioxide and water.
Methanol is produced naturally in the anaerobic metabolism of many varieties of bacteria. As a result, there is a small fraction of methanol vapor in the atmosphere. Over the course of several days, atmospheric methanol is oxidized by oxygen with the help of sunlight to carbon dioxide and water.
Xylene is a generic term for a group of three benzene derivatives which encompasses ortho-, meta-, and para- isomers of dimethyl benzene. The o-, m- and p- designations specify to which carbon atoms (of the benzene ring) the two methyl groups are attached. Counting the carbon atoms from one of the ring carbons bonded to a methyl group.
Two other alcohols whose uses are relatively widespread (though not so much as those of methanol and ethanol) are propanol and butanol. Like ethanol, they can be produced by fermentation processes. (However, the fermenting agent is a bacterium, Clostridium acetobutylicum, that feeds on cellulose, not sugars like the Saccharomyces yeast that produces ethanol.)
Unlike ethanol or methanol, isopropanol can be separated from aqueous solutions by adding a salt such as sodium chloride, sodium sulfate, or any of several other inorganic salts.[4] The process is colloquially called salting out, and causes concentrated.
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