What is the difference between ethyl alcohol and isopropyl alcohol?

Question

In LongDrug, there are 2 rubbing alcohol, ethyl alcohol and isopropyl alcohol. What is the difference between them? Thank you!

Answer 1

Ethyl Alcohol = ethanol (CH3-CH2-OH)
Isopropyl alcohol = propan-2-ol (CH3 - CHOH - CH3)

Answer 2

Uh, it has to say what the active ingredient is. The manufacturer can't just sell bottles of "stuff". If you're 100% sure it doesn't say it on the label, by law it has to, then look it up online by the manufacturer. Or like she said, just go to the pharmacy and buy a new bottle. They're like 99 cents. Oh, and about what MaviGozler said - straight from the bible, aka wiki: "Isopropyl alcohol is cheaply available. Like acetone, it dissolves a wide range of nonpolar compounds. It is also relatively nontoxic and dries quickly. Thus it is used widely as a solvent and as a cleaning fluid (by dissolving lipophilic contaminants such as oil). Examples of this use include cleaning electronic devices such as contact pins (like those on ROM cartridges), magnetic tape deck and floppy disk drive heads, the lenses of lasers in optical disc drives (e.g. CD, DVD) and removing thermal paste from CPUs. It is also used to clean LCD and glass computer monitor screens (at some risk to the anti-reflection coating of the screen), and used by many music shops to give second-hand or worn records newer looking sheens. It cleans white boards very well and other unwanted ink related marks. Isopropyl alcohol also works well at removing smudges, dirt, and fingerprints from cell phones and PDAs. It is effective at removing residual glue from sticky labels."

Answer 3

Ethyl alcohol is CH3CH2OH

Iso-propyl alcohol is CH3CH(OH)CH3.