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guaguanco
Hazard to Others
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Registered: 26-11-2003
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Best and worst smelling chemicals?
My favorites: piperonal (heliotrope) and vanillin. I just love those smells.
Worst: Thiophenol; just a foul sulfury smell. Phthalyl chloride; a nasty acrid smell.
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Haggis
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Yea, vanilla is pretty good.
There are two chemicals I've encountered that I absolutely do not like. One is butyric acid. The stench of vomit.
The other is pentene. I don't know what it was about it, but it nearly made me throw up. I had to leave the room while working with it before.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds.
<b> <a href=\"http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xEE41A2B1\">PGP Key</a> </b> 0C0A 7486 B97F
92EE AE50 A98C A4F3 087E 8CE9 A782 |
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Ramiel
Vicious like a ferret
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Location: Room at the Back, Australia
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Paraformaldehyde is a nasty one. It has an awful harsh industrial type smell... oh, and it burns all the way to ground zero. I literally fell over
when I got a whiff of this - reflexively to get away from the smell!
Oil of Wintergreen is probably my favorite.
Caveat Orator
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Darkfire
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Wintergreen and vanilin are my top two, im not sure about worst.
\"I love being alive and will be the best man I possibly can. I will take love wherever I find it and offer it to everyone who will take it. I
will seek knowledge from those wiser and teach those who wish to learn from me.\" Duane Allman
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
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Mood: Waiting for spring
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Dimethyl sulfide is pretty bad. I like the smell of xylene, toluene, and gasoline. What is it that's in gasoline that makes it smell so
wonderful? It almost smells good enough to drink.
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gritty_cryst
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I've smelled a few of the sulfide members like everybody but not any seleniums or telluriums. Supposedly certain members of all the group 6
elements (such as the hydrides) smell worse as you go down the table. Even H2O would probably smell if we hadn't evolved in it. Has anyone here
smelled any seleniums and telluriums?
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guaguanco
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| Quote: | Originally posted by gritty_cryst
I've smelled a few of the sulfide members like everybody but not any seleniums or telluriums. Supposedly certain members of all the group 6
elements (such as the hydrides) smell worse as you go down the table. Even H2O would probably smell if we hadn't evolved in it. Has anyone here
smelled any seleniums and telluriums? |
No, although Shulgin repeats a story about a vial of dibutyltelluride that was dropped by a German chemist in a train car many years ago. The traincar
had to be scrapped, since the intolerable odor couldn't be removed.
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guaguanco
Hazard to Others
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I once made S-allyl O-ethyl dithiocarbonate. It was an oil with an overpowering garlic smell.
CH2:CHCH2SC(:S)-OC2H5
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gritty_cryst
Harmless
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That reminds me of a story I heard from a professor about a graduate student researching tellurium for his thesis. Nobody ever wanted to be around
him.
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vulture
Forum Gatekeeper
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What is it that's in gasoline that makes it smell so wonderful? It almost smells good enough to drink.
A blend of benzene, toluene, xylene and C8 alkanes.
One shouldn't accept or resort to the mutilation of science to appease the mentally impaired.
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unionised
International Hazard
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Linalool is one of the nice ones too.
AFAIK the smell of petrol is largely due to benzene. I guess gasoline smells the same. At any rate, I wouldnt go sniffing too much of it.
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chemoleo
Biochemicus Energeticus
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Location: England Germany
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HCN doesnt smell too bad either.... were it not for it's toxicity 
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
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Mood: Waiting for spring
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A blend of benzene, toluene, xylene and C8 alkanes.
No, I've smelled all those aromatics separately, as well as various liquid alkanes, and none of them approach the delightful scent of gasoline. I
suppose it's a secret ingredient like the special addiction chemicals in Coca-Cola.
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Magpie
lab constructor
Posts: 5939
Registered: 1-11-2003
Location: USA
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Mood: Chemistry: the subtle science.
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Ah, the smells of the organic lab! It has always been like entering a magical world for me. IIRC allyl alcohol has an intriguing smell. Acetic
anhydride was wicked yet intriguing. Pyridine was sickening. A professor said that he added one drop of pyridine to the ethanol bottle to prevent
student theft.
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ahlok2002
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amonia got the worst odor .......
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itsme
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Try the (mono)fluorothiophenoles before you decide on the worst smelling chemical substance - at your own risc ! Maybe you'll be banned from the
campus ..
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chloric1
International Hazard
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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]
Fellow molecular manipulator
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tom haggen
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I like the smell of nitromethane, butane, the smoke that comes off of steel when your drilling it.
Dislikes- #1 fish oil #2 sulfur, #3 bleach, #4 stale machine coolant, this horrible smell comes from bacteria.
[Edited on 22-3-2004 by tom haggen]
N/A
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notagod
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I read that 4-chlorophenylisocyanide should have one of the worst smells there are. All isonitriles is said to smell bad. Mixing strong hydroxide
solution, a primary amine and chloroform will get you there. Don't know if it is toxic or so.
[Edited on 2004-3-21 by notagod]
[Edited on 2004-3-21 by notagod]
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JustMe
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In reply to gritty_cryst, I have had the great displeasure of encountering Hydrogen Selenide and Hydrogen Telluride. The former I made many, many
years ago while in high school , avoiding the synthesis of Hydrogen Cyanide due to it's toxicity. Funny thing I found out later, that Hydrogen
Selenide is 20x MORE toxic. I was young then, but I made it outdoors with a fan blowing the other way, dissoving it in water, of course. Nasty smell,
like metallic sulfur (not really possible to describe).
Years later I tackled Hydrogen Telluride. Mixed powdered aluminum with powdered tellurium, heated the mixture to make Aluminum Telluride and reacted
with very dilute Hydrochloric Acid. MUCH worse smell, and knowing the toxicity, I only made a minute quantity, outdoors again, anyway, I do not
recommend it.
Strangely, I don't like wintergreen at all, but I like the fruity odors of other acid esters.
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AngelEyes
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Some of those alkyl esters have a peculiar, but very nice, smell. One that springs to mind is Ethyl Acetate (Ethyl Ethanoate - Pear Drops, yes?) -
reminds me of school tuck shops...
Worst smells? Butyric acid and ammonia for sure, but how about thioethanol? I have heard that it's eeeevil....
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unionised
International Hazard
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Location: UK
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Thioethanol, aka ethanethiol, is used as the stenching agent for gas supplies. It ranks as pretty rank.
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Backyard Blaster
Harmless
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Location: Canada
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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.
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Mr. Wizard
International Hazard
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I think the name for the fecal odors is Indole or the Indole family. Another sickening odor is from rotting flesh. The amine group(s) attached to a
short carbon chain gives Cadaverine and Putrescine. Naaga pooey!
I think you might have made a little hydroflouric acid with your butane powered glue gun. When you run chlorinated hydrocarbons through a flame you
make phosgene and hydrochloric acid, among other things. I'm not sure there is a fluorine analog to phosgene. Does anyone know? Anyway, the HF
made by running the flourocarbons through a flame are bad enough, and just as poisonous as HCN. It sounds like you were lucky. These same acids (HCl,
HF) are produced when a refridgeration compressor burns out and over heats. The acids have to be removed from the system by flushing and using a
neutralizing drier.
[Edited on 28-3-2004 by Mr. Wizard]
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BromicAcid
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The fluorine analog to phosgene COF2 is Carbonyl Fluoride.
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