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Sober up by dialysis

 Then reuse the ethanol
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When you're fed up of being drunk or are otherwise undesirably intoxicated by alcohol, for instance when you're in a coma, hook yourself up to a dialysis machine containing a lipid membrane studded with transport proteins for ethanol. The ethanol in your blood, but not its metabolites, will pass through but many other solutes won't. The other side of the membrane will then accumulate a liquid relatively high in ethanol and you will sober up. Distil that liquid and reintoxicate yourself with it when desired.
I can see the following problems with this: I'm not aware of an actual transport protein specific for ethanol, other solutes will pass over and be distilled too and it doesn't remove the secondary metabolites.
I'm a teetotaler from a long line of alcoholics.
—nineteenthly, Jan 04 2009

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       I suspect there isn't an ethanol transporter - we don't normally encounter much ethanol (except at weekends), and in any case it probably diffuses quite nicely through membranes.   

       However, you don't need a transporter. Just use diffusion, like regular dialysis. The buffer liquid just needs to contain whatever salt/sugar mix is used for regular dialysis. I'm pretty sure that regular dialysis tubing is permeable to ethanol. Should work handy dandy. In fact, I dare say that regular dialysis patients may be able to confirm the sobering effect of dialysis.
—MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 04 2009
   

       Wow, it could actually work. I'll have to ask someone about that.
—nineteenthly, Jan 04 2009
   

       If you Google "dialysis alcohol sober", you'll find a few references to this scattered amongst the junk. Impressively, this idea comes up tops.
—MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 04 2009
   

       Usually, the halfbakery idea coming up first while researching the halfbakery idea is not a good sign...
—jutta, Jan 04 2009
   

       And you...a Muncie girl!
—4whom, Jan 04 2009
   

       an added benefit is less stress on the liver? ..(*would I have an after treatment hang over? )   

       always good to have more good wise options to drunkenly overlook, while in a stupor.   

       designated driver, call a cab, call the portable dialysis treatment, or...drive drunk and stupid ...*(be green and use the ethanol as a BIO fuel on the way home )
—Sir_Misspeller, Jan 04 2009
   

       as an after thought. a pocket version that could automatically turn on and clean-sober me up, if it 'heard a siren' . so by the time I failed the roadside dexterity testing, and had blood drawn, my blood would hold no convict able, jail able evidence of 'drunken stupids' driving'!
—Sir_Misspeller, Jan 04 2009
   

       Thanks everyone, that's certainly one aspect. Having said that, i think you're missing the extra bit, which is to store the ethanol for reuse.
—nineteenthly, Jan 05 2009
   

       Well, if you're asleep it could also take over the function of going to the bog, so you wouldn't need to get up in the night even if you'd had a skinfull.
—nineteenthly, Jan 05 2009
   

       I think it's easier to hook up w/ a med tech & just get the banana bag.
—Zimmy, Jan 06 2009
   

       [UB], that's neat. I suppose you could also add some alcohol to the saline. How much difference does the first pass effect make?
—nineteenthly, Jan 06 2009
   

       An alcoholic beverage from blood? There's a biblical flavor to this.
—ldischler, Jan 06 2009
   

       There's a potential 'green' aspect to this: power vehicles with bio-ethanol from drunks.
—FlyingToaster, Jan 06 2009
   

       Transsubstantiation? You could also have a car that runs on water this way. The water gets turned into wine miraculously, distilled, and the spirits used as fuel. That raises the question of conservation of energy in the conversion of water into wine. The mass presumably stays the same, but where does the energy come from? How much ethanol is there in the wine? Do you get the same volume of wine as water?
—nineteenthly, Jan 06 2009
   

       Transubstantiation of water into alcohol isn't necessary. The deuterium in a gallon of water, if fused in a reactor, would equal the energy content of 300 gallons of gasoline. Same thing for a gallon of blood...or gasoline for that matter. (The deuterium in a gallon of gasoline contains the energy equivalent of more than a thousand gallons of gasoline. Want to get twenty thousand miles to the gallon?)
—ldischler, Jan 06 2009
   

       Well we can't all have fusion reactors in our cars...or can we?
—Spacecoyote, Jan 06 2009
   

       //There's a biblical flavor to this.//
//Transubstantiation of water into alcohol isn't necessary. The deuterium in a gallon of water, if fused in a reactor, would equal the energy content of 300 gallons of gasoline. //		   

       Deuteron-omy?   

       \\turned into wine miraculously,\\ \\ Do you get the same volume of wine as water? \\ first, please, at what tempurature does this mirical operate at? \\The mass presumably stays the same, but where does the energy come from?\\ duh, think about it! It's a MIRICAL.   

       Is there any plan to get the water in the grape juice-by product, out? because i like grape juice from concentrate.   

       And really if my ride were a miraculas car, I'd have choosen the invisability option also or in place of this one .
—Sir_Misspeller, Jan 07 2009
   


 

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