Can an alcoholmeter be used to test the alcohol content of hand sanitize

March 24, 2020 12:32 PM

Hi, Can an alcoholmeter like the one in this link be used to test the alcohol content of hand sanitizer? This is made for beer and wine testing. Is there something better for this purpose?
posted by Studiogeek to Health & Fitness (3 answers total)

Your link is missing.

If you're referring to a meter of this type, though, the results would be unreliable. The alcoholmeter there works because a mixture containing mostly water & alcohol (such as a distilled spirit) has a particular density, and so an object with a known weight will float in it at a particular level. Hand sanitizer, on the other hand, contains a substantial fraction of other ingredients (glycerin, aloe gel, what have you) that change the density from what a pure water-alcohol mixture would have.
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:52 PM on March 24, 2020 [6 favorites]

Yeah that wont work. For something like hand sanitizer you would need to do a lab analysis...I know something like head-space sampling on GC-FID would work since we do it at my lab for blood/beverage alcohol levels.
posted by Captain_Science at 1:03 PM on March 24, 2020 [2 favorites]

I have that meter, and unless your hand sanitiser is solely made from ethanol and water and fluid enough for the meter to float, then no.
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 2:08 AM on March 25, 2020