| Pages:
1
2 |
Sauron
International Hazard
Posts: 5351
Registered: 22-12-2006
Location: Barad-Dur, Mordor
Member Is Offline
Mood: metastable
|
|
H2S on CNN: rash of suicides in Japan using OTC materials
According to major media reports, Japanese are killing themselves and sometimes endangering their neighbors by mixing laundry detergent and cleanser,
or other OTC mixtures, to generate hydrogen sulfide.
The techniques are reported to be promulgated on various pro-suicide web sites.
I am wondering if anyone can shed any light on the chemistry or chemistries involved. Bath salts and liquid cleaners have also been mentioned, but the
media are being vague about the brand names and compositions.
Such OTC generation of H2S might be of more than passing interest to some of us, though hopefully not for purposes of self-immolation.
Sic gorgeamus a los subjectatus nunc.
|
|
|
Douchermann
Hazard to Others
Posts: 117
Registered: 11-10-2005
Location: Illinois, USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Well paraffin wax and sulfur has worked for me for H2S (obviously not for suicide); paraffin wax can be bought by the pound in a grocery store, and
sulfur in the garden section of super markets usually. That's quite OTC.
C25H52 + 26S ----> 26H2S + 25C
It\'s better to be pissed off than to be pissed on.
|
|
|
Sauron
International Hazard
Posts: 5351
Registered: 22-12-2006
Location: Barad-Dur, Mordor
Member Is Offline
Mood: metastable
|
|
The question was not how to make H2S. The question was how these Japanese are making H2S, and from what OTC materials precisely, and what is the
chemistry?
I'm sure we can all come up with x-number of unrelated and irrelevant ways to make H2S.
Sic gorgeamus a los subjectatus nunc.
|
|
|
not_important
International Hazard
Posts: 3873
Registered: 21-7-2006
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
http://smt.blogs.com/mari_diary/2008/04/customers-who-b.html
|
|
|
Sauron
International Hazard
Posts: 5351
Registered: 22-12-2006
Location: Barad-Dur, Mordor
Member Is Offline
Mood: metastable
|
|
OK, one component is called Sanpore in Japan. The rest of the links are useless to me as they are in Japanese.
I will google Sanpore and see what if anything I can find in English about its composition, I am not optimistic.
No luck in Google.
[Edited on 24-4-2008 by Sauron]
Sic gorgeamus a los subjectatus nunc.
|
|
|
not_important
International Hazard
Posts: 3873
Registered: 21-7-2006
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
First I read of it said "medical products", which makes me suspect an acidic cleaner and something like http://www.drugs.com/cons/selenium-sulfide-topical.html
|
|
|
Sauron
International Hazard
Posts: 5351
Registered: 22-12-2006
Location: Barad-Dur, Mordor
Member Is Offline
Mood: metastable
|
|
A simple sulphide and an acid would certainly do the trick, but is boring chemically. I was hoping for something a wee bit more entertaining. Oh well.
Back in horse and buggy chemistry days this was done in a Kipp apparatus, which is a neat looking bit of glass that I have not seen sold for a long
time, using iron pyrites ("fool's gold") and an acid. Usual general chemistry lecture was to demonstrate identification of metal ions by precipitation
of their colored water-insoluble sulphides by bubbling H2S through. This was a routine high school level demonstration in the 60s and earlier.
Very little was made of H2S toxicity as I recall. More of a bad smell than a poison, was the attitude. Times have changed.
The Japanese are talking about banning the 1993 best selling book that teaches suicide techniques, while the Dutch are now publishing a similar
volume, I am not sure if it is a translation or a fresh book. Go figure.
Sic gorgeamus a los subjectatus nunc.
|
|
|
garage chemist
chemical wizard
Posts: 1803
Registered: 16-8-2004
Location: Germany
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
You try to make H2S from pyrite and acid? It doesn't work, FeS is needed for that. FeS2, remarkably, is inert against aqueous acids as far as I know.
|
|
|
Formatik
National Hazard
Posts: 927
Registered: 25-3-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: equilibrium
|
|
According to this: http://news.3yen.com/2008-04-17/japanese-fad-rotten-egg-suic...
They mix Sunpole® toilet cleaner (9.5% HCl) with MUTOUHAPPU (calcium sulfide) bath salts, to generate H2S.
|
|
|
-jeffB
Hazard to Others
Posts: 185
Registered: 6-12-2007
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Calcium sulfide bath salts? 
|
|
|
Formatik
National Hazard
Posts: 927
Registered: 25-3-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: equilibrium
|
|
Yeah. That's what I thought too. Never heard of that. Here's a picture of the stuff: 
A liquid solution.
|
|
|
not_important
International Hazard
Posts: 3873
Registered: 21-7-2006
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Also known as 610 (you can see the number on the label)
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%9F%B3%E7%81%B0%E7%A1%AB%E9%...
http://utumatari.blog110.fc2.com/blog-entry-197.html
|
|
|
Sauron
International Hazard
Posts: 5351
Registered: 22-12-2006
Location: Barad-Dur, Mordor
Member Is Offline
Mood: metastable
|
|
Japan has lots of volcanos, hence lots of volcanic hot springs rich in sulfur and people go soak in these for health. Try reading a good tourist guide
to Japan.
So, I conclude that this calcium sulfide bath salts product is for people who want to simulate a mineral hot spring in their own tub.
Just a guess. Anyone have a better explanation?
Sic gorgeamus a los subjectatus nunc.
|
|
|
not_important
International Hazard
Posts: 3873
Registered: 21-7-2006
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Diluted it is used as a treatment for ringworm, but the major promoted use for products of this type is agricultural, with a minor use of staining
metals. It could very well commonly be used off-label as a bath additive, the Japanese are almost as crazy as Americans when it comes to new uses.
|
|
|
Mr. Wizard
International Hazard
Posts: 1042
Registered: 30-3-2003
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Just as general information, the color of the stuff looks like the Calcium Polysulfide solution sold as a "Dormant Disease Control" for fruit growing.
I'm not going to mention a brand name. You mix the stuff with water and spray the fruit trees before they leaf out in the spring. It has the familiar
H2S smell. Mixed with water about 20:1 it will immediately blacken shiny copper. It is quite effective at removing the copper layer from US pennies
(post 1982), leaving a shiny zinc core.
|
|
|
peach
Bon Vivant
Posts: 1428
Registered: 14-11-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Hello Sauron
I just mentioned this (the sulphide suicides) in an entirely unrelated topic then, googling around the question, found you'd mentioned it.
The bath salts they are using is Mutohappu; I suspect others will work as well.
As formatik says, it functions because the product contains sulphides, as per the iron sulphide method with the kipps generator you mentioned.
I believe the product is likely made by evaporating off mineral well water. A lot of countries have historical wells and springs that people either
used to bathe in or drink from due to the high mineral content. I have had a taste from two of these. One in Ireland and another in Poland. In both
examples, they are clearly rich in sulphides because I could smell the unmistakable rotting eggs as soon as I went into the buildings. It'd be a bad
day the day they get some cleaners in and they dump hydrochloric in there. 
With that in mind, you'd be after bath salts that say something like "Natural spring minerals for ultimate awesome healing powa!" on the front. Some
of them are kind enough to list the main components on the back. It is quite likely a lot of the ones you pick up will only have small amounts of the
sulphides in them. If the components aren't listed, you could have a rough guess based on where it says they've come from.
Pyrite will react with concentrated hydrochloric, this was a test used to discern fools gold from real gold.
Remember that iron sulphide and hydrochloric are usually warmed in such a generator to get it going at a decent rate. It will likely also benefit from
a session with a hammer prior to combining the two. Choosing samples based on their level of crystal size may make this process easier.
I haven't tried it with a lump myself, having only seen demonstrations of it when looking around, but I do have a nugget of gold in the post* and will
foolishly give it a try with warm hydrochloric.
Maybe a video is in order, depending on how things work out (I have tried rending one on manganese now probably ten times, with various codecs and it
taking an hour to do per ten minutes worth, then another half hour to upload, and it keeps coming out wonky; so it's annoying me and wasting a lot of
time at present).
*I actually had a nugget of it lying around the house all of the time I was growing up. I tried burying it in the garden and then pretended I'd
amazingly struck gold by digging it up later in front of my brother. Now I want some to try it, the things gone missing. 
|
|
|
ScienceSquirrel
International Hazard
Posts: 1863
Registered: 18-6-2008
Location: Brittany
Member Is Offline
Mood: Dogs are pets but cats are little furry humans with four feet and self determination! 
|
|
Alkalis like potassium, sodium and calcium hydroxides readily react with sulphur to form a mixture of sulphides and other things.
I am half tempted to try and make some.
There is a video here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifoj7Dcj6JQ
Add a few drops of hydrochloric acid and I would guess fanny's your hydrogen sulphide 
|
|
|
peach
Bon Vivant
Posts: 1428
Registered: 14-11-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Looks like he's getting ready to shoot up in the bathroom
But it's a good link!
You can produce zinc sulphide by igniting a pile of fine zinc powder with sulphur present in an equal state. There will be a flash as it goes.
Dripping HCl onto that certainly produces hydrogen sulphide, I've been doing it the last few weeks to check the results of things I'm trying with it.
The reaction doesn't work if the zinc is in big lumps. It likely does work, but the rate is so slow it's basically worthless.
It does also work with aluminium. Which is now VERY easy to get big bags of in micronic form as so many people want to have a go with thermite in the
garden. The aluminium is produced by blowing molten aluminium through nozzles and into a cooling chamber, where microscopic droplets of it solidify
and fall out as the dust.
To produce my zinc sulphide (trying to keep the number of components other than the battery starting point as low as possible), I've been dissolving
battery casings in sulphuric (which will happily nomnom through them), then heating the resulting sulphate with sulphur - because the idea was to find
a method that involved people buying the fewest number of other things; and grinding the casings up will introduce contamination, as will burning it
in the open air.
Unlike the liver of sulphur method, you get pretty much pure zinc sulphide out of this - you can buy a stick of sulphur from the pet store (it's put
in dogs' water bowls in the summer to heat them cool off; something to do with sweat and electrolyte I suppose, and the bar means it's unlikely to be
cut with some other rubbish, and it's easy to smash it up into fine dust).
I was after the purest sulphide possible using basic, under the sink, chemicals for others to try with. The combustion methods would involve
contamination as far as the needs of my work, but it'd be fine for hydrogen sulphide generation I'm thinking.
I have some aluminium and powdered sulphur out in the utility room.
Considering the ease of getting those two, that it only involves mixing them together and igniting them, that seems like a nice way to get a big lump
for your generator. It doesn't matter if said lump isn't ultra pure, it just has to have a lot of sulphide in it.
| Quote: | | Liver of Sulphur is the alchemists' name for a chemical mixture that is produced by heating potassium carbonate with sulphur and was made as long ago
as 776AD by the celebrated Arab alchemist Jabir Ibn Hayyan. It is not a true compound but a metastable mixture of potassium polysulphides and
potassium sulphate. (K2S, K2S2, K2S3, K2S4, K2S5, K2SO4). Since the end point of the reaction used in Liver of Sulphur production varies from batch
to batch, the exact constituents of Liver of Sulphur also vary from batch to batch. |
^^^ Metalclayuk
[Edited on 13-1-2011 by peach]
|
|
|
ScienceSquirrel
International Hazard
Posts: 1863
Registered: 18-6-2008
Location: Brittany
Member Is Offline
Mood: Dogs are pets but cats are little furry humans with four feet and self determination!
|
|
I would guess that the attraction of liver of sulphur to the Japanese is that it is soluble in water and has mildly fungicidal properties.
It is probable that a weak solution in hot water would do wonders in clearing up athletes foot, dandruff, nadger itch, etc.
Aluminium sulphide is supposed to hydrolyse quite readily on contact with water, much like aluminium phosphide which is used to kill moles.
I wonder how effective it would be as a home made mole killer?
|
|
|
peach
Bon Vivant
Posts: 1428
Registered: 14-11-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
I had a quick go at making some Aluminium Sulphide last night by simply mixing the two powders, I think I used 6.9g sulphur and 3.6? of aluminium.
Tried igniting it with a blow torch, but it didn't seem to do a lot.
Being on the way to bed, I went with sticking a strip of lithium in it to help it ignite, set it out in the garden in a ceramic ramekin and pressed
'hot'. It does crackle and spit sparks as it goes, so best not done inside, or with it too close to the precious new flesh of videodrome.
Going back inside, there was some unreacted sulphur melted and cooled onto the walls of the dish, a bit of aluminium powder and a sizeable blob of
something fused (fused tightly enough the ramekin fell apart long before the blob, in fact.... it's like chipping rock trying to get it back off).
I put a few drops of water on a small fragment (about the size of your small finger tip, with a thin coat of this fused blob on it), it began to
effervesce. I could very easily detect the smell of rotting eggs, quickly.
I decided to leave it, not wishing to wake up dead in the utility room, and went back inside. Where in I was immediately met by someone upstairs
saying they could smell "shit, eggy shit", coming under the door, which is through some double glazing, through the house and upstairs.
I ran that test at about 4pm. It's now 2.41am, and it still smells of egg in the house. The samples are outside, but I think it's getting in through a
gap in the door frame.
I guess that'd be a fairly easy way to make it based on the persistence and strength of smell coming off these little lumps.
Doesn't even seem to need hydrochloric no, I didn't use any and I think the lumps are now reacting with damp in the air out there, I would expect it
to have cleared the air by now if it wasn't.
[Edited on 14-1-2011 by peach]
|
|
|
mr.crow
National Hazard
Posts: 884
Registered: 9-9-2009
Location: Canada
Member Is Offline
Mood: 0xFF
|
|
Yikes for a minute there I thought Sauron was back
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble
|
|
|
ScienceSquirrel
International Hazard
Posts: 1863
Registered: 18-6-2008
Location: Brittany
Member Is Offline
Mood: Dogs are pets but cats are little furry humans with four feet and self determination!
|
|
Not the Dark Lord himself!
I live in Jersey most of the time but I have a lot of friends in Brittany and I visit quite a lot.
Jersey is pretty tame but Brittany is very French with a slight air of Hazzard County, a strong sense of DIY and an up yours attitude towards Paris.
In most of France if you have a wasps nest you call in the pompiers ( firemen ) and they get rid of them.
However in Brittany you pour a couple of litres of petrol, diesel, paraffin, etc down the hole. Opinions vary as to which is best and how much to add.
Home made aluminium suphide for mole slaughtering would probably get me in with the Kronenbourg drinking locals down at the cafe tabac. 
|
|
|
peach
Bon Vivant
Posts: 1428
Registered: 14-11-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
The stuff became a problem last night.
At 4am, with the cooker hood and toilet extractor having been running all night, the entire house still stank of it.
A family member went out to Tescos and heard two members of staff asking if they could smell something odd (since tesco's sells a lot of food, the
smell of rotting food is something they won't want in a megastore); meaning there was enough of it on their clothes for people to smell it walking
past.
Worried about what could be going on with the concentrations and exposure, I ended up having to go back outside, collect all the bits together, put
them in a paper bag, then double bag that inside two plastic ones to try and get rid of the smell. I expect the neighbours can smell it, as two
windows and the door to the garden are open out there.
The smell is FINALLY starting to die down a bit in the house now it's bagged and away from the damp air (it'd been raining overnight), but it's still
clear when you walk back in and particularly if you go out to the utility room.
So a bit of aluminium powder and some sulphur will get you a nice supply of it for your generator.
This method has both strong positives and negatives.
Firstly, the materials are very easy to get in large amounts, it seems to be yielding a good amount of usable product, making the sulphide is super
simple (the reaction runs for about five seconds) and it doesn't involve wasting acid or having glassware full of it sitting on the desk.
Downsides... the ones I'm experiencing. If you spill it, moisture gets in the bottles it's stored in, it will stink the place out and could
potentially become dangerous - especially if you fall asleep and it gets going overnight. It makes disposal harder to deal with, as the sulphide will
do the same thing in the bin. So the bin and everywhere around it will absolutely stink. Again, it could also be dangerous as it will build up in the
bin to a potentially explosive / lethal concentration with the lid closed.
Zinc sulphide, however, doesn't do this. Neither does iron.
Those have a disadvantage against aluminium because finely divided zinc and iron may be harder to find. Although, iron filings aren't so bad (they
won't be as fine as the aluminium, so you may not get as thorough a reaction when producing the sulphide).
It would probably benefit from a sprinkling of magnesium powder in the mixture to get it all going.
I made a short video of me doing this, now I need to get the bastard to render correctly.
[Edited on 14-1-2011 by peach]
|
|
|
ScienceSquirrel
International Hazard
Posts: 1863
Registered: 18-6-2008
Location: Brittany
Member Is Offline
Mood: Dogs are pets but cats are little furry humans with four feet and self determination!
|
|
There are a few hints here, it might have been best to Wiki it before making it!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_sulfide
|
|
|
ScienceSquirrel
International Hazard
Posts: 1863
Registered: 18-6-2008
Location: Brittany
Member Is Offline
Mood: Dogs are pets but cats are little furry humans with four feet and self determination!
|
|
I have made iron sulphide by melting iron filings and sulphur together.
It is pretty easy and it only reacts with strongish acids so it is a lot more convenient as a source of hydrogen sulphide.
Aluminium sulphide sounds a little too excitable!
|
|
|
| Pages:
1
2 |
![[*]](images/xpblue/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
