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The specific gravity of ethanol is 0.794. This is for pure 100% ethanol. Specific gravity is the ratio of the density of a substance compared to the density of water. For example, water weighs 8.33 lb/gal at standard conditions (60 deg F). Ethanol weighs 6.61 lb/gal at standard conditions (60 deg F). Therefore, the specific gravity of ethanol is 6.61 divided by 8.33, equals 0.794.

A person can verify this result (0.794) by very fundamental experimental testing. Get a gallon of pure water and weigh it precisely. THIS will yield the number 8.33 lbs. Then do the same for ethanol; weigh a gallon of pure ethanol. This will yield the number 6.61 lbs. VOILA! 6.61 divided by 8.33 equals 0.794.

I did NOT actually do this weighing of the two liquids, but I COULD! I instead looked the values up in a standard reference book. My copy of "The Data Book on Hydrocarbons", also commonly referred to as 'the Maxwell data book', is a very familiar book to any one who works around the oil industry, as I did for 38 years.

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14y ago
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12y ago

Water is taken as the base substance for measuring relative density. The relative density of water is 1.0, but that for Mercury, which is 13.6 times as heavy as water (provided the same volume of each is weighed. So we say that the relative density of mercury is 13.6

Another way of saying the same thing is to compare the density of substances. Now the density of water is 1 gram per cubic centimetre (cc).

One cc of mercury weighs 13.6 grams, so we say that its density is 13.6gms/cc

Density is really a measure of how closely the atoms or molecules of a substance are packed together. Somewhat similar to the density of population of a country. I don't know the exact figures but the density of population for England (given as an average of the number of people in each square mile) would be much higher than the density of population for the Sahara Desert.

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15y ago

no @ 20 degrees celsius the density of water is 0.998

@ 20 degrees celsius the density of ethanol is 0.789

units are g/centimetres cubed

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12y ago

Ethanol density 0.805 to 0.812 and water density 0.997

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Q: What is the specific gravity of ethanol?
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