Methanol
10 ml of methanol is enough for permanent blindness — micrograms are in every cigarette.
At a glance
- Also known as
- Methylalkohol · Holzgeist
- CAS number
- 67-56-1
- Toxicity
Very high
- Carcinogenic
- Not classified for cancer
- In cigarette smoke
- 80-180 μg per cigarette (DKFZ)
What is Methanol?
Methanol (methyl alcohol, wood spirits) is the simplest alcohol — chemically a methyl group on an OH group. Unlike the more benign ethyl alcohol (drinking alcohol), methanol is highly toxic in small amounts: 10 millilitres can cause permanent blindness in humans, 30 millilitres are fatal. In tobacco smoke and vape aerosols, methanol appears as a pyrolysis product.
Why is Methanol in cigarettes?
Combustion of pectins and other plant polysaccharides in tobacco produces methanol as a small fragment. Each cigarette delivers 80 to 180 micrograms of methanol into the mainstream smoke (source: DKFZ). This amount is toxicologically small compared to the acutely lethal dose but accumulates with every puff over years.
What Methanol does to your body — short term
At cigarette-smoke quantities, methanol causes no noticeable acute symptoms. Acute methanol poisoning (e.g. from adulterated spirits) typically runs with delay: after 12 to 24 hours, headache, nausea, visual disturbances and breathing difficulties appear. The visual disturbances arise from optic nerve damage — methanol is metabolised in the liver to formic acid, which specifically blocks the mitochondria of optic-nerve cells.
What Methanol does long term
Chronic methanol exposure at tobacco-smoke quantities is less well studied toxicologically than acute poisoning. Studies hint at involvement in chronic visual disturbances and neurological effects in long-term smokers — hard to separate from other factors. More important is the additional burden on liver metabolic pathways that process methanol with the same enzymes as other alcohols.
Where else do you know Methanol from?
You know methanol as fuel additive, windshield antifreeze, denaturant for industrial ethanol, and raw material for biodiesel. The historical name „wood spirits“ stems from when methanol was produced via dry distillation of wood. In cheap adulterated alcohol, methanol is globally the most common poisoning trigger — hundreds die each year from „alcohol poisoning“ that are in reality methanol poisoning.
How it compares
Germany's workplace exposure limit for methanol is 270 mg/m³ (200 ppm, AGW TRGS 900). The amounts per cigarette fall well below this — methanol's importance in tobacco smoke is rather the years-long cumulative burden on optic nerve and liver systems, not acute toxicity.
Workplace exposure limit: 270 mg/m³ (200 ppm, AGW TRGS 900)
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