Rapid and Semi-Quantitative Analyses of Ethanol and Xylene Isomers Using FTIR Spectroscopy

The quantitative determination of ethanol in alcohol samples as well as the semi-quantification of xylene isomer proportions in a commercial cleaning solvent were both carried out using the quick, simple, inexpensive, and non-destructive Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The results obtained depicts that the commercial alcohol (Smirnoff vodka) and home-brewed alcohol contain 37.22 % and 37.70% of ethanol respectively. Also discovered to be 8 %, 11 % and 69 %, respectively, were the quantities of the xylene isomers namely para-xylene, ortho-xylene, and meta-xylene in the commercial cleaning solvent. The agreement between these results with those from the manufacturing company revealed excellent precision, reliability, and convenience of the technique employed.