Quality Control of Ethyl Alcohol Used as a Medicinal Product

The manufacturing process, the source (raw materials), and primary packaging materials dictate requirements for the quality of ethyl alcohol used in the pharmaceutical industry.

The aim of the paper was to analyse how the quality of ethyl alcohol used as a component of medicinal products depends on the starting materials, production method and technology, intended use, and the choice of the primary packaging. The paper analyses available information on ethyl alcohol quality and summarises data on potential impurities associated with the ethyl alcohol production technology and the starting materials used. It was established that Russian manufacturers mainly use grain crops (wheat and rye), as well as molasses—a by-product of the sugar industry, as raw materials. The paper addresses the process of improving the quality standards for ethyl alcohol from a historical perspective. A comparative study of the requirements of the Russian and the world’s leading pharmacopoeias for the pharmaceutical substance—ethyl alcohol 95%, 96% demonstrated the need to include identification by IR-spectrometry and impurity control by UV absorbance into the respective monograph of the State Pharmacopoeia of the Russian Federation. The authors formulated requirements for the choice of packaging material for ethyl alcohol, which will not affect its quality during transportation and storage.

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