Best and worst smelling chemicals?

HCN doesnt smell too bad either.... were it not for it's toxicity

Hypochlorites!

Hypochlorites have a peculiar pleasant acrid sweetness with relative purity. But becomes lacrimator with nitrogen based organics and ammonium salts.

As far as bad smells, Acetaldehyde had a penetrating fruity/paint thinner smell but I got just a small whiff and i had a hacking cough for the rest of the night. Read in Merck that it causes delayed pulminary edema! NASTY SHIT!

P.S. mixed NaClO with acetone and sulfuric acid.WHOA!!! The whole lot turned purple and it burned like pepper spray!! Chloroacetone??

[Edited on 3/21/2004 by chloric1]

[Edited on 3/21/2004 by chloric1]

Thioethanol, aka ethanethiol, is used as the stenching agent for gas supplies. It ranks as pretty rank.

My favorite chemical smell has to be a rubber rejuvenator (M.G. Rubber Renue) used in electronics repair. 70% xylene, 20-something% salicylic acid, and traces of other stuff. Very aromatic, smells like wintergreen candy. Just don't breathe too much - I find it tends to make me dizzy and nauseous.
Worst odor? Hmm, do fecal odors count as chemical??
The worst chemical odor I can think of, I'm actually not sure of the name for it. I was using a butane powered glue gun one night, and noticed some dirt around the exhaust port. I reached for a can of dust spray (contained tetrafluoroethane, or something to that effect) and gave it a squirt while the gun was still operating. No fireball, but it produced a cloud of the most noxious smoke I've ever had the misfortune to inhale. One whiff left me choking and gagging, my nostrils burning, and my eyes watering. Took hours for the smell to air out. To this day I'm not sure just what I produced, but whatever it was, it was nasty!
I'm also told that if crazy glue (cyanoacrylate) - wet or dry - contacts a hot soldering iron, it will produce some nasty cyanide gas. I won't bother trying to prove that theory.

The fluorine analog to phosgene COF2 is Carbonyl Fluoride.

Ethyl acetate smells nice Are we the only two who likes it?

Im surprised no one mentioned ethanol yet I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something really nice about its smell.

Skatole? This is the name of the poo-poo smell?

Is anyone here familiar with skat? Or scat, I believe it is spelt. It's pornography in which people spread shit all over each other and have disturbing orgasms. Not that I'm into this kind of thing but I was just wondering if this is where the name had come from? Because Scat seems pretty off-key for some kinky porn name.

Cadaverine? Putrescine? HAHA. Most appropriate names.

I love wintergreen oil. I'd bathe in it if it was harmless. I'm sure it'd also make a beautifully scented lubricant to accompany my scattish endeavors



[Edited on 28-3-2004 by thunderfvck]

Scat? Rember the "Scat Man" song popular in the early 90's? Now that's scat man!

I like the smell of the di- and mono- nitro toluenes(smell a bit like almonds, sort of).
However, I really dislike formaldehyde, and the mixture of gasses that comes off a wet animal corpse, that is placed in an airtight container, in the sun. YUCK!.

Smells

Hmm vulture, over here the denatured ethanole doesnt smell pretty, but it is not making me want to vomit.

5 minutes ago I was using some 92% denatured alc. from Poland, and it smelled better, almost like hunny
(Think of all the poor children, hmmmm liquid hunny )

Hmmm, the skull now I look at it, it's almost like its smiling

Edit: Worst: NOx, Acetone
Best: Nafta (smells like a old engine)


[Edited on 23-5-2004 by Michal]

Wow. Freaky pic

I love the smell of 95% ethanol, its so sweet and... I cant describe the rest

Acetone isnt too bad, until you take a huge whiff and hits you so hard you almost pass out.

Yeah your right, its not that bad....

But a week ago I was making Blackpowder (CIA) and the acetone was boiling away and I had the perfect idea to take a big snif ---> aarrrghhh it feels like your lungs/nose etc. get very cold and the smell is ... ehr... not nice

Liquid MEKP definitely has the weirdest smell.

My favorite is a toss up between xylene/toluene/gasoline, acetone peroxide, and HNO₃. My taste for HNO₃'s acrid odor was definitely an acquired one.

[Edited on 24-5-2004 by madscientist]

I love the smell of HCl, it is very invigorating and the smell of certain kinds of epoxy- some smell like delicious cherry-flavored mouth watering gum drops. I was using lots of this variety and couldn't help sniffing the container several times. Mmmmm! Ahhh!

As for foul smells, SO2 and SO3
really are nasty, but I suppose I'll learn to like them.

HCl??!! My god.... You freak

Ethanol, Vanillin, Gasoline, acetone, and burning gunpowder are all smells that I find to be very good . HCl, pyridine, methylamine, and formaldehyde are some of the worst smells I have ever inhaled!

No one's favorite is ether? When not too concentrated that sweet odor is hard to stop smelling. First time I encountered the vapor, it smelled unlike anything I had ever known.
Phenylselenol is probably the worst. That goes right along the lines of the other posters who made mentions of selenide/ols and telluride/ols, both alkyl and hydrogen. These are probably the worst odors known. (isocyanides?)
The formaldehyde, HCl, and hypochlorites mentioned are pussycats. I'd wager anyone who places these types of irritant-type smells as the worst has never smelled a chalcogen derivative (S,Se,Te).

I don't know of any methanol desensitization. I remember hearing that those methyl esters in sinus spray will ruin your sense of smell (you know, the gear you stuff up your nose and pump).

Come to think of it, who else likes the smell of blood? I have always enjoyed the scent - even my own blood noses smelled fragrant and pleasant. My work at an abattoir didn't dispel my love of the scent (in fact, after a dingoes breakfast and no lunch break, at the end of a 12 hour shift - those carcasses look miiiiighty appetizing!).

Anyone else?


[edit - spelink]

[Edited on 24-6-2004 by Ramiel]

Hmm, after using HCl a lot in one day, I could not smell it at all. It still stung the nose, but smelled like plain air. It could have been that my nose was clogged, but I doubt it.

Now I can smell HCl easily. Good.

Edit- does eating Gahhlic damage the nose? My friend has a very poor sense of smell, he blames it on garlic, and says his ability to smell varies inversely with the amount of garlic eaten. This is slightly OT I know...


[Edited on 24-6-2004 by Cyrus]

Bloods smells like iron. We're not crustacaens which use blue hemocyanin

Isn't it the copper reacting or altering the shape or proteins on the skin surface?

Or something like that .....

Speaking of tasting stuff, I just tasted H2SO4 today. It was a really dilute solution that was CLEAN and that I made from MgSO4, not drain cleaner crap.

It tastes bad. Very sour in a strange way, and bitter at the same time.

Smells

I dont know, but I do know that it's used to give gas (butane,propane etc.) a (disgusting) smell so you can detect leaks (so you dont suffocate/blow up your house )

my taste in chemical smells

My favorite smells are:

2-hydroxy-5-methoxybenzaldehyde
p-ethoxyphenol (reminds me of pistachio icecream, and it tends to linger too)
1-octanol
1-nitropropane


Absolutely horrible are:
1. pyridine ! (this sickening smell stays in my nose for hours without getting used to it)
chloroacetyl chloride
butyric acid of course ;-) (the anhydride actually smells much better by the way)

and... hot hexane, at first the fumes smell agreeable and a bit fruity, but they also stay in the nose and become sickening.


As a reply to vulture, concerning the bad smell of blue methylated spirits. I once used this as is in a dissolving metal reduction. When finished the smell was everywhere, in my clothes, in my hair, it surrounded me like a cloud and I became very nauseous.
I want to bet on it that there is pyridine or a derivative in there.

I just got a really good whiff of conc. NH3 gas. (By accident)

Add it to my list of favorite smells.
I know it's got to be bad for humans, but it smells/feels kind of like a listerine strip mixed with oil of wintergreen. Dilute ammonia is just annoying.

Nope, I like NH3.

As long as I only get 1 good whiff, after a few seconds it gets annoying.

I just have a wierd sense of smell I guess.

And yes, I lost the ability to smell HCl for 1 day. At first I thought that all of the HCl had escaped as gas, and that I couldn't smell it because the bottle just had water in it, which is not very reasonable, but then I did some test, I think tasting the HCl, and immediately decided there was some left. IIRC, I could still feel the corrosive effect within my lungs and nose, but there was no smell.

edit-- I know that it is hard to believe, but you'll have to take my word for it. I can't email you my nose. The one way to prove whether or not I am lying would be to have several sciencemadness members, including you, all deliberately sniff or use conc. HCl a lot for a few days, and then record their results here. The wisdom of that, however, would be questionable.

[Edited on 29-7-2004 by Cyrus]

I decided to set fire to a small pile of sulphur the other day... It smelled great until I stuck my face over it and took a huge whiff...

Ouch - that made my whole head water

I also love the smell and taste of black powder. I have a nasty habit of eating it occasionally, and believe me, black powder farts are VERY potent... (I found my own strangely addictive though)

You need to get out more.

A smell I like

THe comniation of lumber and Muriatic acid(conc HCl) is VERY pleasing to me. It has nice background odor and is pungent enough that you only want to sample sparingly!

Don't put your nose up to a slighly warm flask of acetic acid/hydrochloric acid. You'd think I'd know better at my age.

Sassafras oil smells great, wintergreen oil too is a good pick. Diethyl ether would my favorite solvent for that matter, I find it weird that none seems to like it as much. Someday I won't resist the temptation of taking a good sniff of the stuff . The worst thing I smelled would be hydrogen sulfide, cadaverin (1,4-diaminobutane, well named) and 2-allylsesamol. The latter really gives you an urge to vomit.

You must be kind of weird to like ammonia's smell. It stinks! And well, I pity you people that claims to like the smell HCl. Sounds more like a "I got the biggest dick" kind of talk. HCl *dosen't smell*, it burns! You can't smell it, with a negative pKA, it just reacts with all parts of your nose. Sniffing too much of it will make you unable to smell for the rest of your life...

I'm hurt, Synopsis. That cut me deep, man!

You obviously don't have a nose masculine or tough enough to handle and appreciate the smell of raw HCl!

Yes, I'm joking!

This post has not been edited.

[Edited on 5-2-2005 by Cyrus]

Good:
- ethanol (even better: a good single malt but that's a complex mixture)
- iodine

Bad:
- good old H2S
- amyl alcohol/pentanol
- carbon disulfide
- bromine (although I like that in a weird way)
- How about kakodyl compounds As2(CH3)4 and analogs? I've never smelled them but any compound named after its smell must be overwhelming!

The stuff mentioned elsewhere, like certain tellurium compounds, is definitely on my whiff-list! If there is one thing hard to put to words, it's odour - you have to experience it yourself

Pyridine sticks

Pyridine stinks to high heaven
PU