Markers of the Nature of Ethyl Alcohol: Chromatographic Techniques for Their Detection

A procedure for distinguishing synthetic ethyl alcohols from those obtained by fermentation using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry is discussed. To reveal the nature of alcohols, the following special chemical markers (characteristic components of the impurity composition of synthetic alcohol) are used: 2-butanol, acetone, and crotonaldehyde. It was found that 2-butanol is the most informative marker of synthetic alcohol because it is not present in fermentation alcohols. Acetone and crotonaldehyde are additional markers of synthetic alcohol because they can occur in food alcohols. The results of studying the stability of the above impurity components and crotonaldehyde degradation products are presented.