Alcohols
Read our general notes on Risk Assessment
Alcohols in society
Different cultures approach the use and abuse of alcohol (ethanol) in a wide variety of ways. For example, Islam requires that all of its members abstain from drinking beverages containing ethanol. Some societies use alcohol as a socially acceptable drug whilst others use it as a key to shamanistic experience. In western cultures there is much concern about the effect that overuse of alcohol can have as illustrated by the fact sheets on the web site of the Institute of Alcohol Studies.
Ethanol has important industrial uses too as you can discover from the web site of Commercial Alcohols Inc.
Industrial companies manufacture and supply a wide range of alcohols. Note that every product may have several names including: a trade name, a systematic name (which maybe based on a slightly different system to the one you are learning) and a traditional name that often indicates where the compound was first found.
Agricultural crops such as maize can be a source of about chemicals including alcohols.
Web links
Institute of Alcohol Studies
Commercial Alcohols Inc
Alcohols made by an industrial company
Chemicals from maize. (This is heavy on flash and can be slow to load.) Click on 'products' and then on 'sorbitol' to find out something of the importance of an alcohol with six –OH groups.
Contributed by Jenny Wells, Tauntons College, Southampton
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updated: 04 May 2005
