Kauri butanol method to check the effectiveness of a cleaning solution

A. I'm sorry to say that you probably will not be able to use the Kauri-Butanol test for a definitive answer about the strength of your IPA.

Kauri dissolves completely in Butanol and closely-related alcohols. This includes 1-propanol and 2-propanol (isopropyl alcohol).

The premise of the KB test is that Kauri will precipitate from Butanol if the Butanol is sufficiently diluted with another solvent which does not dissolve Kauri as well. Solvents like water take very little to precipitate Kauri from the standard solution. Others, like acetone [on eBay or Amazon], can dissolve Kauri fairly well, if not as well as butanol: where .5 mL of water will precipitate Kauri (earning a Kb of 6.5), about 18.7mL of acetone is required before Kauri precipitates (for a KB of 76.2). 2-propanol (IPA) requires upwards of 150mL to precipitate Kauri, making KB values over 500. Generally, KB is considered valid with maximum numbers under 200.

Additionally, the KB number is not indicative of the ability of any solvent to dissolve any particular material. For instance, high-KB-number solvents like trichlorethylene (KB 129) dissolve oils very well, but won't touch sugars. Water, (KB 6.5) dissolves sugar very well and won't have much affect (alone) on oils.

If the Kauri-Butanol test was recommended to you by someone, I recommend returning to them for further information and verification of the usefulness of this test on IPA: alternatively, a call to the nearest college with a good chemistry program may be considerably more helpful.