Chemical Forums
Specialty Chemistry Forums => Citizen Chemist => Topic started by: claw on December 29, 2012, 11:19:57 PM
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What chemicals eliminate odors besides the basic peroxide or baking soda? Maybe somthing a little stronger?
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Its often easier to mask than eliminate.
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I have heard that tcep is used to eliminate odors. Is this true?
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It depends on what is causing the odors. Many of the worst smelling compounds are thiols and small carboxylic acids. Small carboxylic acids get absorbed very nicely by weak bases like sodium bicarbonate, and the thiols are nicely oxidized by the hydrogen peroxide. There are also some amino compounds which are very smelly, and are absorbed best by vinegar or other acids. Some examples of common nasty smelling compounds are propanoic acid (partially responsible for smelly feet), caproic acid (smells like goats or other farmyard animals), putrescine and cadaverine (small diamines, responsible for the smell of decaying flesh, bad breath, and other bodily odors), methanethiol (rotten cabbage, bad breath, flatulence, and many other biological smells).
If you know what you are trying to remove from the air, the choice of chemicals becomes very simple.
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Well, that depends at least slightly on what "tcep" is an abbreviation for. You might also save time by actually telling us what odor you hope to eliminate, and their source. As an example, if you've spilled perfume or solvent on a wooden floor, nothing but time and ventilation will help. Baking soda an absorb thiol or other acidic odors, but only if there are traces in an tightly enclosed area with decent surface area of baking soda to react. I'm talking refrigerator area, not room sized.
*EDIT*
You know, basically what fledarmus: said.
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Im looking at trying to make a homemade scent eliminator to spray on my clothes to go hunting with. So i can not be detected by the animals. the active ingredient in febreeze is beta cycl. If I wanted to make this to sell I could not use that I dont think because they have it patented of course. thanks for the insight. Im also worried about the tcep because Ive heard it can be dangerous?
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I don't know if the company in charge of febreeze has patented their formulation, or the ingredient. But I don't think that precludes you from using it in a formulation of your own. I don't know if anything will sufficiently mask all human scent molecules, given that they're constantly produced. I know part of the human scent is butryic acid, and other large fatty acids, but I don't know if they can fit in the febreze "cage." You've got parts of an idea, and parts of the problems you might face, but nothing complete enough for a good economic plan.
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Im really just rying to mask the scent that would be in the clothes. Do you know any other chemicals that I could buy that might work? what about the tcep?
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Is the tcep you are talking about
tris(2-carboxyethyl)phosphine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCEP
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Yes it is.
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A reagent that breaks disulfide bounds into twin thiols doesn't remove odors, it creates them instead.
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Well im at a stand still on what chemicals could work? This info is kinda hard to find. So ya think that the beta cyclo. is a good bet?
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fledarmus, Im looking to eliminate the scent.
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What's beta cyclo.? ???
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curious cat, its the active ingredient in febreeze. I think I have found my answer. What do yall think about propylene glycol?
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I think I have found my answer. What do yall think about propylene glycol?
And why that?
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Well its the active ingredient in soap, deodorant, and is scentless. Tell me your input
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Proplyene glycol is a common emulsifier, and won't de-scent or capture odors, or react with them to make the odorless. In fact, it doesn't react with many things at common temperatures, making it a common additive, even in foods.
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So what do you think could work? Im at a stand still here ??? ???
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Well its the active ingredient in soap, deodorant, and is scentless. Tell me your input
No input. I don't think there's any magic ingredient that'll get rid all odors. That's almost alchemy.
The rest is experimentation based on your specific case.
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ok if human odor is from lipids are there any chemicals that combat that type of odor rather than others?
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How about triclosan?
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why not you make yourself smell like the animal you are looking for
douse your clothes with that animals urine
probably male version
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why not you make yourself smell like the animal you are looking for
douse your clothes with that animals urine
probably male version
Agree! Much easier to mask an odor with a stronger one than to eliminate it entirely.
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Somebody else, on this forum, already has ideas:
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=63621.0
We've already discussed, the very commonly known fact, that you can't "mask" many common scents:
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=63090.0
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It takes a little more work than that to mask odors for hunting, especially if you are stalking. The problem is that many of the odors that are normal to humans are triggers to hunted animals, and you have to work at removing a lot of different odors from different places.
Start from the inside - your body. You are a predator, and an animal that sweats. This is not a common condition in the natural world and makes you very obvious to hunted animals. So you need to control the smells coming out of your skin. Some of the most serious close-in stalkers I know do that by going totally vegan for three or four months before hunting trips. They claim it changes the chemical composition of their sweat, removing many of the acids associated with meat digestion and replacing them with the more ammoniac smells of vegetable digestion. Yes, they do smell different, and they are successful hunters.
Then you have the surface of your body, with all the smells of soaps, detergents, and perfumes that help us identify each other. Well, our noses aren't that good and soaps and perfumes are going to be far more obvious to animals. Since these are not normal natural smells, especially in the concentrations we wear them, they are immediate flags for wildlife. This is a hard problem to deal with - soap and perfume smells are for the most part not going to be removed by any of the deodorants you are suggesting, and avoiding soap just increases your own natural scent. My suggestion would be to avoid soap and try to find some detergent that is odorless and has no perfumes or additives.
Next your clothing, with an additional assortment of soaps and perfumes. This is a little easier - wash with plain water and leave to air out for several days before wearing them.
Now your equipment - oils and metals, especially rusty metals, smell. Plastic and rubber smells. Gunpowder residue smells. Wood finishes smell. Leather smells. And none of these smells are natural. There isn't much you can do about any of these smells, either. The best thing you can do is stick to wood and cloth, and use equipment that is at least several seasons old.
So no, Febreze isn't going to make you smell less, and neither will propylene glycol. These are not normal outdoor smells - if you can take a whiff from an open bottle and identify the product, any hunted animal downwind of you will be able to do the same. For everything else, the best you can do is to clean everything as thoroughly as possible and let it air out, avoid new gear, and either change or cover your own natural scents. If you are really obsessive about it, you will eventually train your own nose to pick up the odors of your gear, and you will know what you need to fix or cover. If you can smell it up close, an animal can smell it downwind.
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@fledermus
Sound practical advice. I agree. I spent some years in a deer hunting state and my hunter friends had similar strategies.
As an aside, the difference between the "mask" and "eliminate" strategies IMHO is this: One way to deodorize is to remove the offending molecules to below the threshold concentration that will trigger a discernible response in the olfactory system of a typical recipient. Often, these are extremely low concentration values, so this strategy may not always be easy.
To me then, the other approach is to introduce a artificial concentration of another odorant that the recipient considers benign. If the relative conc. of the "mask" is high enough the olfactory system ought to have a problem discerning the underlying to-be-masked odor. Key point being, that every odor does *not* have a unique nasal receptor but an odor is a mental recognition of a particular firing pattern of a small set of receptors.
As an (exaggerated) analogy, say you have a favorite perfume; now I flood a room with an olfactory cocktail of bleach / sewage / garlic / H2S or other such strong odors would you be able to detect the perfume at the same levels?
That's theory though. Maybe someone with more knowledge of the area can comment.
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As a hunter I would like to say that "masking" or "eliminating" your scent so you can not be detected by an animal is much easier but nastier then you may think. It is very hard to hide your scent from animals as their sense of smell is much greater then our own. Which is why hunting supply stores sell different types of what is basically "animal urine" it masks the smell of the hunter but it's gross as heck. Sadly I am not even joking LOL there are honestly entire shelves of different ones too.