Alcohol for molecular procedures - what type is best? (Dec/20/2005 )

Dear colleagues:

What ethanol is recommended for molecular procedures? Some "absolute ethanols" have 5% methyl alcohol and 5% isopropanol and I have heard they are not optimal for these type of procedures... its true? why?

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i use biomolecular grade ethanol ant it' 99.9% pure...

I use 'pure' ethanol at 95%.

The other 5% is water.

I don't want the methanol/2-propanol contaminating my prep.

It has served me fine over the years.

Yea, 95% ethanol is the best for molecular work. I mix it with 5% sterile MiliQ water.

Molecular Biology Grade or HPLC grade ethanol is best... if there is anything but water in it - it may mess up your experiments...