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Topic: Nastiest Chemical  (Read 15553 times)

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Offline kriggy

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Re: Nastiest Chemical
« Reply #15 on: December 29, 2017, 07:32:33 PM »
I kinda like the smell of triethylamine.. 8)

Thiophosgene is smelly s#*$ not to mention its quite toxic.
Benzyl bromide is s#*$ as well. Once poured about 0,5 ml of it down into the sink while washing glassware by accident. My eyes started to burn after maybe 30 seconds after I did that. Another 30 seconds and my labmate felt it as well on the other side of the lab. After maybe 2 minutes, prof from other lab came to ask if we did something with bromine. I explained my situation and was called an amateur. Then we started to joke about lawyers having some smelly fun - faculty of law is maybe 100 meters from our building. (Glad im not in US because in that case the joke would probably mean that im getting sued by someone.)

Offline wildfyr

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Re: Nastiest Chemical
« Reply #16 on: December 29, 2017, 11:48:52 PM »
It's rather strange you like TEA. That smell is pretty biologically programmed to mean "BAD, ROTTEN, AVOID"

Offline OrganicDan96

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Re: Nastiest Chemical
« Reply #17 on: June 09, 2018, 06:09:39 PM »
I worked with a thiol (benzyl mercaptan) which has the worst smell you could imagine, and all the products stank, I had to set up bleach baths at the back of the fume hood and wash the rotorvap every time i used it. quench everything in bleach including my gloves. thiols are the absolute worst.

Offline JGK

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Re: Nastiest Chemical
« Reply #18 on: July 04, 2018, 11:35:01 AM »
a lot of the mercaptans are pretty gross
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

Offline hypervalent_iodine

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Re: Nastiest Chemical
« Reply #19 on: July 04, 2018, 07:04:42 PM »
I worked with a thiol (benzyl mercaptan) which has the worst smell you could imagine, and all the products stank, I had to set up bleach baths at the back of the fume hood and wash the rotorvap every time i used it. quench everything in bleach including my gloves. thiols are the absolute worst.

A huge portion of my PhD has been focused around using various benzene thiols. Needless to say I am not very popular, though I think I do pretty well confining the smells to my hood.


Offline OrganicDan96

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Re: Nastiest Chemical
« Reply #20 on: July 05, 2018, 05:55:59 AM »
I worked with a thiol (benzyl mercaptan) which has the worst smell you could imagine, and all the products stank, I had to set up bleach baths at the back of the fume hood and wash the rotorvap every time i used it. quench everything in bleach including my gloves. thiols are the absolute worst.

A huge portion of my PhD has been focused around using various benzene thiols. Needless to say I am not very popular, though I think I do pretty well confining the smells to my hood.

I did pretty well to keep it confined, no one complained about the smell. however the product from the reaction stank as well so weighing it, taking melting points, IR ect were problematic. however, none of the later steps in the synthesis made products that stank.

Offline Babcock_Hall

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Re: Nastiest Chemical
« Reply #21 on: July 05, 2018, 05:36:31 PM »
I found the smell of trimethyl phosphite, (CH3O)3P to be very unpleasant.

Offline hypervalent_iodine

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Re: Nastiest Chemical
« Reply #22 on: July 05, 2018, 06:29:01 PM »
I found the smell of trimethyl phosphite, (CH3O)3P to be very unpleasant.

I discovered this one just the other day. I didn’t find it too offensive, but it was very strong. Reminded me a little of thioanisole.

Offline Guitarmaniac86

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Re: Nastiest Chemical
« Reply #23 on: July 06, 2018, 10:45:42 AM »
I worked with a lot of thiol compounds during my PhD and the worst one I ever made was 3-thio-3-methyl-butanoic acid. It smelled like concentrated faecal matter. Like imagine the smelliest, nastiest poop you've ever smelled, and multiply it by a thousand.

I made a gram of it, and I swear I could smell it in my hair after a week of using it, despite all the showers. It was so bad.
The absolute worst smell I have come across is Lawessons reagent... After it had been used in a reaction. A lab colleague left it out on the bench over the weekend. Health and Safety evacuated the entire floor of the building. He was booted from his PhD for that one. It was one of many mistakes and dangerous lab practices, that ultimately lead to his demise.
Don't believe atoms, they make up everything!

Offline wildfyr

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Re: Nastiest Chemical
« Reply #24 on: July 06, 2018, 01:16:35 PM »
Butanoic acid and a thiol in one molecule? Holy hell

Offline phth

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Re: Nastiest Chemical
« Reply #25 on: July 26, 2018, 02:09:34 AM »
Some aldehydes smell wonderful. Some aldehydes are worse than thiols *gag*. At least farts have a familiar smell....BnSH aint so bad...

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