chemist1243
Hazard to Others
Posts: 170
Registered: 7-8-2019
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My hydroxylamine smells like cyanide
Title says it all. I bought some hydroxylamine HCl from the same supplier(chemsavers) like i always do. I always knew the smell of hydroxylamine as an
ammoniacal, chemical odor. But when i open this new batch, i smells like almonds and must. The almond scent is stronger than the must, but it does
have a really musty “barn-like” smell as well.
What exactly does this mean? Does my hydroxylamine have some sort of cyanogenic impurity or something? If so, how much would there have to be to
overpower the hydroxylamine?
I dont have the iron salts to do a classic Prussian-blue cyanide test, is there any other way to verify? It’s just really weird, it doesnt smell
like hydroxylamie one bit. It looks just like hydroxylamine, so its just an impurity causing the smell, but still.
If you have any info about this issue please share!
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njl
National Hazard
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Registered: 26-11-2019
Location: under the sycamore tree
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Mood: ambivalent
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This is really interesting... even if you did have iron salts, would those salts be reduced by hydroxylamine? You have hydroxylamine HCl, so if there
was a cyanide salt impurity it could definitely be evolving HCN.
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chemist1243
Hazard to Others
Posts: 170
Registered: 7-8-2019
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One thing to mention, I did happen to spill some hydroxylamine solution on me, definitely enough to kill me instantly if it was pure cyanide. The
scent of musty almonds is definitely stronger when the hydroxylamine is in a solution. I tried doing an oximation with this stuff in a weakly acidic
solution (slightly wet sodium acetate) prior to noticing the smell for the first time. If HCN formed it was probably at this point, however I didn’t
smell anything and i haven’t suffered even the mildest of cyanide poisoning symptoms since.
I definitely was working with it, and was exposed to an extent, I think I would be suffering atleast some symptoms by now if this “cyanide” was
anything more than a minute impurity.
Maybe I should bring this up with chemsavers?
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