DEG - Diethylene Glycol

About This Product

Diethylene glycol, DEG with formula C4H10O3 and CAS number 111-46-6, is a clear, colourless, odourless, viscous liquid with a sweet taste, fully miscible with water and strongly hygroscopic. Industrially it is a capable material: it dehydrates natural gas, plasticises and softens resins, and serves as a polyol in unsaturated polyester and polyurethane manufacture. Its toxicology, however, governs how it must be controlled. DEG is metabolised to 2-hydroxyethoxyacetic acid and diglycolic acid, which cause acute kidney failure, and the lethal dose is small. Because it is sweet, viscous and superficially similar to glycerine and propylene glycol, it has repeatedly been substituted for them, whether fraudulently or through inadequate testing, in syrups and toothpaste, producing mass poisonings with hundreds of deaths across several countries and decades. The consequence for buyers is procedural rather than technical: pharmacopoeias now require identity testing of every container of glycerine and propylene glycol received, and DEG must never be handled or stored where it could be mistaken for them. It is used in natural gas dehydration, unsaturated polyester and polyurethane manufacture, plasticisers, brake fluids and as an industrial solvent. Bio Green Chem supplies DEG to specification on assay, water, monoethylene glycol, acidity, colour and ash, for industrial use only.