Alcohols have a long history of myriad uses. For simple mono-alcohols, which is the focus on this article, the following are most important industrial alcohols:
* methanol, mainly for the production of formaldehyde and as a fuel additive
* ethanol, mainly for alcoholic beverages, fuel additive, solvent
* 1-propanol, 1-butanol, and isobutyl alcohol for use as a solvent and precursor to solvents
* C6–C11 alcohols used for plasticizers, e.g. in polyvinylchloride
* fatty alcohol (C12–C18), precursors to detergents
Methanol is the most common industrial alcohol, with about 12 million tons/y produced in 1980. The combined capacity of the other alcohols is about the same, distributed roughly equally.