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General Forums => Generic Discussion => Topic started by: nj_bartel on March 05, 2009, 01:20:55 AM

Title: When attempting to differentiate 2 clear solutions
Post by: nj_bartel on March 05, 2009, 01:20:55 AM

one of which is a concentrated ammonia solution, waft, don't sniff like you're trying to breathe in the aroma of a fine wine.

8 hours later and the smell is just leaving my nostrils.

Title: Re: When attempting to differentiate 2 clear solutions
Post by: Arkcon on March 05, 2009, 05:55:57 AM

I read, as a child, the waft mode of telling what a chemical smells like.  The kids laughed at me, in my junior high chemistry days, so I stopped, and just started sniffing.  That is a bad idea, in my college basic chemistry days, I was kinda hit or miss -- if I knew a gas was coming, I wafted, but once I was doing some sort of reaction with a nitrogen compound, and I got a brown gas, and I sniffed instead of wafted and ... ow, NO2, smells like ... burning.