Denatured alcohols

In Conservation DistList Instance: 28:37 Friday, February 27, 2015,
Jillian Gregory asks for information about denatured alcohols, and
quotes from a post that I put on the British Library's Collection
Care blog.  Unfortunately the British denatured alcohol regulations
changed on 1 July 2013 so the information in that post is obsolete
and should be ignored.

The current regulations can be found at

    <URL:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/excise-notice-473-production-distribution-and-use-of-denatured-alcohol/excise-notice-473-production-distribution-and-use-of-denatured-alcohol>

In principle, colourless Completely Denatured Alcohol (CDA)
consisting of 100 parts ethanol, 3 parts isopropanol and 3 parts
methylethylketone might be acceptable for conservation purposes, but
I do not know whether the presence of denatonium benzoate would be
harmful.  I do not know whether it might be retained by paper after
treatment, and if so, what its effects might be.  Experiments would
be needed to find out.

However, I would have thought that the use of Industrial Denatured
Alcohol (IDA) in conservation would be covered by paragraph 17
section 8 of Excise Notice 473: "For use by qualified persons in
medical, scientific or educational activities".  Failing that,
conservators who use less than 20 litres per year should be covered
by section 7: "For use in any specialised hobby or pastime, where
IDA is specified in the trade or technical literature, and the
quantities received are reasonable".

If HMRC is starting to make it difficult for independent
conservators to buy IDA, it would be a good idea to involve Icon and
to get them to make representations to HMRC on behalf of the
conservation profession as a whole.

Barry Knight
St Albans
England


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 28:38
                   Distributed: Monday, March 9, 2015
                       Message Id: cdl-28-38-004
                                  ***