Isopropyl alcohol is a clear, colorless, mobile, volatile, flammable liquid with a characteristic, spirituous odor resembling that of a mixture of ethanol and acetone; it has a slightly bitter taste.It is miscible with water, ethyl ether, and ethyl alcohol. Isopropyl alcohol is incompatible with strong oxidizers, acetaldehyde, chlorine, ethylene oxide, acids, and isocyanates.
Isopropyl alcohol will attack some forms of plastics, rubber, and coatings. When heated to decomposition it emits acrid smoke and fumes.
Isopropanol is an important chemical product and raw material, mainly used in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, plastics, fragrances, coatings, and electronics industries as a dehydrating agent and cleaning agent.
Reagents for determining barium, calcium, magnesium, nickel, potassium, sodium, strontium, etc. Reference substances for chromatographic analysis. In the circuit board manufacturing industry, it is used as a cleaning agent and to make PCB holes conductive.
In addition, it is also used in other electronic devices, including cleaning disc cases, floppy disk drives, magnetic tapes, and laser heads for CD or DVD player disc drives.
Isopropanol can also be used as a solvent for flexographic printing, planographic printing, gravure printing, and as an equipment cleaner. This component is often included in ink as well. It is also an important solvent for laboratory dilution and extraction.
In addition, isopropanol is also used as a gasoline additive and a de icing agent for fuel pipelines.
In the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, isopropanol is used to manufacture and produce lotion, hand and body lotion, preservatives, and pharmaceutical reddening agents. It is also used in paints, diluents, coatings, cleaning agents and polishing, as well as surface sterilization, hospital disinfection, food processing plants, etc.
In many industrial and consumer products, isopropanol is used as a low-cost solvent and also as an extractant, and can be used as a substitute for ethanol in many cases. Isopropanol is also used as a solvent for oil and colloids, as well as in the manufacture of fish meal feed concentrates.
Low quality isopropanol is used in automotive fuel. The usage of isopropanol as a raw material for acetone production is decreasing. There are several compounds synthesized from isopropanol, such as isopropyl ester, methyl isobutyl ketone, isopropylamine, diisopropyl ether, isopropyl acetate, thymol, and many esters. Different qualities of isopropanol can be supplied according to the end use.
