Key Points

Fire

• Highly flammable
• Reacts violently with strong oxidising agents including nitric acid, silver nitrate, mercuric nitrate or magnesium perchlorate, causing fire and explosion hazard
• The vapour mixes well with air and explosive mixtures are easily formed
• In the event of a fire involving ethanol use alcohol resistant foam and normal fire kit with breathing apparatus

Health

• Toxic by ingestion, skin and eye exposure
• CHIP clasification: highly flammable
• Inhalation causes irritation of the nose and throat, with choking and coughing at high concentrations
• Ingestion at low to moderate concentrations causes impaired reaction time, blurred vision, vomiting and blackouts
• Ingestion at high concentrations can cause convulsions, coma and breathing complications
• Skin and eye exposure can cause burning, stinging and lacrimation of the eyes
• There is no evidence that ethanol causes cancer in humans

Environment

• Avoid release into the envionment
• Inform the Environment Agency of substantial releases

 

All sections of the compendia are available to download:

 

• Ethanol General Information (PDF, 55 KB)
• Incident Management (PDF, 52 KB)