Carbon dioxide dissolution in ethanol

[yogensha]

Does it dissolve? Is the solubility versus temperature similar to water? Is there an appreciable enough difference between water and ethanol to warrant corrections for calculating pressure or addition of fermentables for high and very high ABV (10-15% +)?

 

[david_42]

Both the CO2 and the ethanol are dissolved in the water.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Okay so, 10% of 12 Ounces is 1.2 Ounces Ethanol provided all the fermentables were in fact, fermentable.

In other words, there is still a LOT of water to dissolve CO2 in despite the high ABV.

 

[Rushis]

The short is, yes, it is very similar to water for homebrewing purposes. You can google Henry's law and CO2 solubitility for a more detailed approach using the chemical potentials for a binary water/ethanol mixture and carbon dixoide. A few papers have been released that experimentally determined henry's law coefficients for this binary mixture, unfortunately they are in small journals that I don't have online access to. Here is a theoretical paper that uses MD simulations to calculate the coefficients.

 

[yogensha]

I found a couple of for-pay papers as well, but my level of curiosity didn't justify the cost. Thanks for the feedback and link!