The frost protection liquid with your own hands: cheap and serdito?
Non-freezing liquid for the car is easy to make at home. But does it make sense? Let’s analyze the pros and cons.
Filling the washer reservoir
If it weren’t for the label, our homemade non-freeze liquid would be indistinguishable from the one sold everywhere.
If it weren’t for the label, our homemade non-freeze liquid would be indistinguishable from the one sold everywhere.
Making something with your own hands is always tempting. And especially – when there is little money (it’s nice to save money). Nezamereyka – not scarce, at least in the central region of the country, and is inexpensive, but still walk on the network recipes for its homemade. As an experiment, we decided to use one of them.
The idea came from a jar of antifreeze fluid, bought by one of our authors in the Samara region. The label of the print as the place of production was … apartment 116 in one of the apartment buildings in Togliatti. This is how it appears to have been distilled in the bathtub.
The second reason of this experiment is the recent frosts that have turned even those antifreezes, which, according to the sellers, are able to stand up to -30°C, into the ice. And in spite of the fact that we know how to cope with such affliction, we want to avoid problems, rather than overcome them. So let’s try to make a really antifreezing antifreeze.
Ingredients
The structure of any antifreeze includes alcohol (the more of it, the lower the freezing point), water, surfactants (surfactants), fragrance and dye. It is elementary! The most expensive alcohol is ethyl alcohol, ethanol. It is used in medicine and can be drunk. The non-freeze products we buy are made mostly from inexpensive isopropyl alcohol, isopropanol, obtained by hydrogenation of acetone or hydration of propylene. It is undesirable to drink. Methyl alcohol, methanol, which is used to make antifreeze products abroad, is an excellent detergent, but has been banned in Russia for 10 years. Why? Some people have tried to drink it with sad results.
The making of the antifreeze liquid
Alcohol and other ingredients can be bought absolutely legally, and the solution will be mixed for ourselves, not for sale. Nothing illegal. The volume is standard – 5 liters. Methanol is rejected immediately – no one wants to check the words of the former Chief Sanitary Doctor of the country Gennady Onishchenko, that in high concentrations its vapors can cause blindness. This leaves isopropanol and ethanol. The latter we will use, since it is less viscous and more fluid, and if the experiment fails we will find a use for the residue. Isopropanol is just for wiping contacts.
The making of the antifreeze liquid
The most responsible part of preparing the solution was performed by the editor with the hardest hands (we selected for the contest).
The most responsible part of preparing the solution was performed by the editor with the hardest hands (we selected for the contest).
The retail price of a five-liter canister produced by Moscow’s Ferein is 900 rubles. Do not be confused by the inscription “antiseptic solution” on the label. This is alcohol, 95 percent. A five-liter can of drinking water cost 30 rubles. The simplest dishwashing detergent, non-aggressive to plastic and metal, costs only 13 rubles per half-liter.
To dye the solution, we decided to use regular linen blue (this is another 31 rubles). We could have used the tablets for tinting the water in the toilet bowl, but that would have been ungentlemanly.
We used some cologne I got for nothing as a fragrance. The total is almost 1000 rubles. However! Now find out how many liters of home antifreeze can be obtained for the money invested. By the way, the most expensive antifreeze, so far encountered in the sale, cost less than 500 rubles. Unfortunately, the high price is not always a guarantee of a low freezing point and excellent detergent properties.
The making of the antifreeze liquid
The making of the antifreeze liquid
We dilute water with alcohol according to the table below. As we want to get the freezing point below -27°C, for 3 liters of water take 2 liters of alcohol. Then we add blue and a few drops of dishwashing liquid (it also contains water), sprinkle some cologne in the jar (a drop of alcohol). Then stir it up.
antifreeze .
To check what we got, we left the solution overnight in an industrial freezer, capable of freezing even vodka. In the morning we opened it with trembling hands because of excitement. Bam! The solution split a little (the concentration of blue is a little more at the bottom) and the liquid became a little more viscous, but it did not freeze into ice. That’s a good thing.
non-freezing fluid
Even after a long “wintering” in the freezer of an ordinary household refrigerator, the solution does not lose its properties at all. Let’s move the antifreeze liquid to the industrial freezer.
Even after a long “wintering” in the freezer of an ordinary household refrigerator, the solution does not lose its properties at all. Let’s move the antifreeze liquid to the industrial freezer.
Now the most important part of the experiment – full-scale tests. Too bad it is not -30°C and there will be no more Siberian frosts in Moscow till the end of winter. We will have to make do with what we have.
We pour our solution into the tank of a premium brand crossover and start washing the glass. Perfect! But the experimenter behind the wheel turns pink for some reason, smiles widely, and then – even chuckles! We smell it: there is strong vodka smell with a note of cheap cologne in the interior. With such antifreeze you will reach the first policeman. And even if there is no positive result with breathalyzer, there is a risk to be checked by hospital, to narcologist. This is not very pleasant. As they say in the famous sketch com, “the solution is treacherous”!
For the same reason you should not pour vodka into the windshield washer tank. By the way, it is now also expensive. The cheapest one we could find costs 380 rubles per liter. That is, the money to fill a washer tank can cost more than a full tank of fuel!
filling the washer tank
Even on the street when filling our homemade antifreeze washer tank can clearly smell alcohol.
Even on the street when filling our homemade antifreeze washer tank can clearly smell alcohol.
The experiment was not a success and we do not recommend repeating it. Despite the fact that our solution did not lose its fluidity even at the temperature close to -30°C, its vapors can cause slight alcohol intoxication if concentrated. And at low concentrations, sniffing vodka in combination with cheap cologne is not pleasant for everyone. In addition, it turned out to be very expensive – the cost was 400 rubles for five liters. At the level of the most expensive antifreeze sold at branded gas stations. We could get a solution half as cheap and without alcoholic odor, using isopropanol, but is there any sense in it if you can buy a ready-made antifreeze for 150 or even 100 rubles in the winter season? And if you buy in advance and at least a dozen cans, you can find 40-50 rubles!
And alcohol, especially medical alcohol, is better used for other purposes. For example, in a solution for instant glass defrosting. Or for irrigation of the intercooler. But that, to paraphrase Strugatsky and Kanevsky, is a completely different story.
