laboratory preparation of methanol?

Question

how to prepare methanol (CH3OH) in the lab?
Thanks.

Answer 1

This compound is very cheap just buy it. If you just need a little and absolute purity is not an issue, you can buy some car gas line antifreeze (it's almost always methanol).

Methanol can be made by destructive distillation of wood in the lab, but I don't think the yield/purity are very good.

I think any preparation you can do in the lab that starts from another chemical will require starting from a material that is even more expensive than methanol itself.

The material is made industrially by partial oxidation of hydrocarbons or by reacting hydrogen with CO or CO2. These processes require pressure, catalysts, and careful control over operating parameters that is difficult to do in a typical chemistry lab.