ALCOHOL BEVERAGE SIMULTANEOUS METHANOL AND ETHANOL

MEASUREMENT UTILIZING A FAST GAS CHROMATOGRAPHIC

TECHNIQUE COUPLED WITH TWO INTERNAL STANDARDS

ABSTRACT

I. INTRODUCTION

Worldwide, toxic alcohol intake is a leading cause of deaths and illnesses. In spite
of this alcohol is consumed globally, and some fundamental factors, such as gender,
age, health status, a nation's economic prosperity, lifestyle preferences, religion, and
cultural norms, have an impact on alcohol usage (WHO, 2018). These elements affect
how alcohol is consumed as well. For instance, unrecorded alcohol is frequently less
expensive; as a result, it may be manufactured and consumed at higher rates in low-
income nations. Some nations outlaw alcohol use, which leads to low alcohol use per
capita and high levels of unreported alcohol consumption, which makes up a large
portion of a nation's overall alcohol consumption.

Humans are particularly vulnerable to the toxicity of methanol because of their

poor capacity to oxidize and detoxify formic acid (Zamani et al., 2019) . The risk of
broad human exposure can occasionally increase when consuming illegal alcoholic
beverages made from "industrial methylated spirits," which include significant
amounts of methanol and ethanol (Destanolu & Ate, 2019) . Because of the specific
effects of its fatal metabolite, formic acid, on the retina, optic nerve, and central
nervous system, methanol poses a major threat to human health and the environment
(Paine, 2001) . Thus, symptoms of methanol toxicity in humans include formic
acidaemia, metabolic acidosis, blindness or severe visual impairment, and even death.

Commercial alcohol producers are subject to inspection on the quantity of

hazardous alcohols present in the production of this type of beverage in accordance
 with the existing regulations governing the presence of methanol in marketed
alcoholic beverages. The amount of methanol in alcoholic beverages is limited to zero
ppm, in accordance with the Bureau of Food and Drugs MEMO Circular No. 13
series of 1989, which cites specific recommendations of medical groups. However, it
is also stated in the clauses in the latter part that modifications were applied to, allow
methanol to be present in alcoholic beverages provided that it shall be derived from
the natural alcohol fermentation process and not added.

The current study's objectives were to first examine the methanol and ethanol
levels of commercial alcoholic beverages using gas chromatography (GC) as the gold
standard method and to determine whether utilizing a dual internal standard approach
would improve the outcomes.

II. EXPERIMENTAL
a. Materials, reagents, and equipment
The reagents used for standardization were either performance liquid
chromatography (HPLC) grade and liquid chromatography (LC) grade volatile
solutions such as LC-grade ethanol, HPLC-Grade methanol, LC-Grade
acetonitrile, and LC-Grade pentanol. For the samples

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

IV. CONCLUSION