Department of Chemistry, Ravishankar University. Raipur-492 010 Manuscript received 24 April 1991, revised 5 December 1991, accepted 22 January 1992 A sensitive method for spectrophotometric determination of methanol in environmental samples is described. Methanol is oxidised to formaldehyde with acidic potassium permanganate and the resulting formaldehyde is reacted with J-acid to form a yellow dye with green fluorescence having \(\lambda\)max at 470 nm. The method has been successfully applied for the determination of methanol in effluents from distilleries and polluted air.