Introduction
The demand for ethanol-based sanitisers has increased dramatically since the dawn of the COVID-19 era, making it very difficult for health regulators to ensure the quality of the products and the safety of unsuspecting consumers. This article reports the development and application of a simple ‘drop-count’ titrimetry method for the determination of ethanol in hand sanitisers.
Materials and Methods
This method follows the classical potassium permanganate-oxalic acid titrimetry but uses very small volumes of the reagents – 0.5 mL of ethanol sample solution, 6 mL of acidified 0.1 M potassium permanganate, and a few counted drops of 0.1M oxalic acid.
Results
This method achieved satisfactory figures of merit, namely, linearity (R2 ≥ 0.9667), reproducibility, and importantly very little matrix effect in the alcohol concentration range of 50 80%.
Conclusion
The small volumes (< 10 mL in total) of the reagents required make this method considerably safe and cost-effective and applicable for fieldwork even by untrained personnel, not just chemists as is often the case for field applications.
Authors
Monts’, K. E.
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, National University of Lesotho, Roma
Ts’emane, R.
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, National University of Lesotho, Roma
Mpakanyane, T. E.
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, National University of Lesotho, Roma
Masiloane-Bohloko, S. C.
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, National University of Lesotho, Roma
Ramashamole, T. V.
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, National University of Lesotho, Roma
George, M. J.
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, National University of Lesotho, Roma
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