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Comment by cyberax | Hacker News Reader

Ethyl alcohol is _cheap_. You literally need just a bunch of sugar, yeast, and a still. Straightforward, low-tech, and safe.

Isopropyl alcohol needs to be synthesized from acetone, which itself is synthesized.

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Acetone–butanol–ethanol fermentation was itself a critical WWI technology, as cordite required acetone. That fermentation process requires only sugars and an acetobutylicum strain. The first president of Israel developed this process.

Yes, Chaim Weizmann.

When was this supplanted by the cumene process?

EDIT: this process was developed from 1939-1945.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumene_process

https://shop.tarjomeplus.com/UploadFileEn/TPLUS_EN_2421.pdf

BTW, isopropyl alcohol is industrially produced from propylene, not acetone.

I don't know how the balance broke down during WW2, but synthesis of ethanol from ethylene in more recent times is economically competitive with fermentation. So for instance, fermentation of sugarcane is easily cheaper in Brazil, but in America most industrial ethanol came from synthesis until corn subsidies were introduced in the 80s which made fermentation cheaper than synthesis.

The US has ample ethane now (it's abundant in much fracked gas) so I suspect this synthesized ethanol would be superior here without the corn subsidies.

A 50lb bag of cracked corn is about $12 at Tractor Supply. I've considered making my own moonshine just for the hell of it. Might actually get around to it one of these days.

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