Octyl Alcohol

[halibut_acid]

I know that a lot of people are gonna say this is stupid, especially since this is the my first post. I've been browsing this forum for years and have just joined because there are an increasing number of questions that I have that I have not found answers to anywhere on the web.

Okay, for my question. I know other members on the site, most notably Hammilton, have talked about consumption of straight chain alcohols up to pentanol. I've seen several posts in which people claim to have enjoyed the subjective effects of butanol more than those of ethanol. I am currently in possession of a small quantity (~100 ml) of reagent grade octanol obtained from a reagent container simply labeled "octyl alcohol" in a lab and am wondering a) if this is likely to be purely 1-octanol, or a mixture of a number of the many possible isomers of octanol, and b) if it is 1-octanol how dangerous would it be to consume. I am not saying I'm going to just go drink it, and if I do receive enough information that I am convinced that it is in fact no more dangerous than consuming the shorter chain alcohols, I would only do so once. I am mostly just curious and not necessarily extremely eager to try it, and I would rather not just dive in and end up dead after only one trial, even with a very small amount. I suppose it would violate the rules to mention the chemical supply company it came from, however they are very prominent in the reagent supply market.

 

[sekio]

Octanol isn't an intoxicant. At least I've never heard of it being one. I think after about hexanol the efficacy as a sedative drops off.

It's a flavor and fragrance component mostly, and I suppose a calorie source too (metabolized into octanoic acid, which is a fatty acid).

Apparently it's been used to control essential tremor at 1mg/kg.

As for telling you what it is... you'd need to have it tested by GC or read the label on the original bottle.

 

[halibut_acid]

Thanks. I was starting to think it might be inactive after reading that it is considered a fatty alcohol. I'm going to hold onto it anyway, it could end up being useful for something else.

 

[endotropic]

I found a phase 1 trial that was apparently discontinued and never written up: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00016679

That makes me think they encountered toxicity serious enough not to pursue this any further. Keep in mind that the 1mg/kg dose used in the study sekio linked translates to less than 1/10th of a milliliter in a 70kg person, you might encounter serious toxicity at doses not much higher than that.

If you ever need to determine the lipophilicity of some new chemical though, you're set.