• Question: What is the worst smelling gas ??

    Asked by 653chea35 to Angela, Claire, Ian, Robert, Sarah on 17 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Ian Cade

      Ian Cade answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      t-Butylthiol is pretty bad
      (the smell added to house gas, (CH3)3C-S-H )

      But then again so are a lot of phosphines
      (R3P, R2PH, RPH2 etc)

      And amines tend to smell fairly bad too
      (cadaverine (NH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-NH2) , putrescine (NH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-NH2) and skatol (3-methylindole)… have… hmm… ‘biological’ odours)

      But smell is not always a good indicator of how bad something is for you…

      I would like to think Ni(CO)4 would smell bad, but apparently (according to wikipedia) it just smells musty or sooty, despite being fairly brutally toxic (instant death at about 30 ppm, through a combination of carbon monoxide and nickel poisoning).

      Phosgene smells like cut grass

      and Sarin doesn’t smell of anything at all

    • Photo: Angela Stokes

      Angela Stokes answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      Smell is very subjective, there are smells some people find awful that others really like. I can’t stand the smell of cauliflower cooking – makes me feel sick! Similarly te rotten eggs smell I find rather nasty – that is hydrogen sulfide.

    • Photo: Sarah Harris

      Sarah Harris answered on 21 Nov 2014:

      Exactly – it depends on what you think is the worst kind of smell! Butyl seleno-mercaptan (C4H9SeH) is produced by skunks, and that’s supposed to smell very nasty

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