Methanol

Chemical structure of methanol

Methanol, also known as wood alcohol, is an organic chemical and the simplest aliphatic alcohol, with the formula CH₃OH. It is a light, volatile, colourless, flammable liquid with a distinctive alcoholic odour similar to that of ethanol (potable alcohol). Today, methanol is mainly produced industrially by hydrogenation of carbon monoxide.

Uses

It is used as a precursor to other commodity chemicals, including formaldehyde, acetic acid, methyl tert-butyl ether, methyl benzoate, anisole, peroxyacids, as well as a host of more specialised chemicals.

Dependencies

• Carbon
• Hydrogen
• Oxygen
  • Methanol

See also

• Ammonia
• Boric acid
• Carbon dioxide
• Cyanide
• Ethanol
• Ethylene glycol
• Methane
• Nitric acid
• Nitroglycerin
• Saltpeter
• Sulfuric acid
• Water
• Chemical compounds

References

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Methanol, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).