Malays. J. Anal. Sci. Volume 29 Number 5 (2025): 1575

 

Research Article

 

Simultaneous profiling of methanol and ethanol in local and foreign alcoholic beverages by GC-FID

 

Manja Murni Che Kalid1,2, Nik Fakhuruddin Nik Hassan1*, Faridah Mohd Marsin3, Noor Hermie Othman3, and Yusmazura Zakaria4

 

1Forensic Science Programme, School of Health Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 16150 Kubang Kerian, Kota Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia

2Narcotics Division, Forensic Science Analysis Centre, Department of Chemistry Malaysia, Jalan Sultan, 46661 Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

3Toxicology Section, Forensic Division, Department of Chemistry, Jalan Dato Bahaman, 25250, Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia

4Biomedicine Programme, School of Health Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 16150 Kubang Kerian, Kota Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia

 

*Corresponding author: nikf@usm.my

 

Received: 14 May 2025; Revised: 7 September 2025; Accepted: 23 September 2025; Published: 16 October 2025

 

Abstract

Intoxication with methanol from alcoholic beverages is a global issue. Methanol can cause severe health complications and death. For these reasons, numerous methods for measuring methanol in alcoholic beverages have developed. This study aimed to develop an accurate, sensitive, and simple method for determining methanol and ethanol in local and foreign alcoholic beverages using GC-FID. The method was developed by optimising GC parameters including an initial oven temperature of 40°C held for 2 minutes, ramping at 25 °C/min until 100°C, a carrier gas flow rate of 4.5 mL/min, a 2:1 split ratio, and an injection volume of 10 µL. The optimised method met UNODC guidelines for specificity, linearity, detection and quantification limits, precision, and accuracy. Both the methanol (0.001%–0.625%) and ethanol (5%–25%) calibration curves had correlation coefficients (r2) of more than 0.99. LOQs for methanol and ethanol were 1.72 and 1.76 mg/L, respectively, with good precision and recoveries. The run time was 5.40 minutes to complete. 19 different alcoholic beverages were analysed by injecting them directly into the GC-FID after adding acetonitrile as an internal standard. This study revealed that 36.8% of samples had methanol concentrations between 0%–0.0198%, while ethanol was detected in every sample. The proposed method is sensitive, simple, and requires no pre-treatment, making it suitable for forensic toxicological analysis. Importantly, methanol was reliably detected without interference from higher concentrations of ethanol. This research demonstrated that the DB ALC 1 column capillary in GC-FID with optimised parameters is very selective and sensitive in measuring methanol and ethanol simultaneously in alcoholic beverages.

 

Keywords: forensic toxicology, ethanol, methanol, alcoholic beverages, GC-FID

 

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