Things I Won't Work With: Thioacetone (2009)

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-work-thioacetone

by chris_overseas • 3 years ago

164 75 3 years ago

science.org

Sniffnoy• 3 years ago

(2009)

_a_a_a_2• 3 years ago

Relevant? Not sure noses have evolved much in 14 years :)

Kye• 3 years ago

It's required for submissions older than the current year. It's not in the guidelines as far as I know, but people will complain (rightly in most cases) and the headline will magically change to include it.

dclowd99012• 3 years ago

Speak for yourself. I’ve had two kids in that time.

lwansbrough• 3 years ago

A YouTuber went to the trouble of making it. https://youtu.be/LmAG8-V_WQY

He ends up doing the final step of the process on an uninhabited island in the middle of a lake for safety.

chrisdalke• 3 years ago

He seemed to not react too much to the smell. With all the other crazy stuff he does, he must be seriously desensitized to strong smells if that’s even possible…

3s• 3 years ago

In the article: “The odours defied the expected effects of dilution since workers in the laboratory did not find the odours intolerable.”

world2vec• 3 years ago

Yeah his nose doesn't feel anything anymore. But the cameraman had a rough time in that island.

VLM• 3 years ago

covid related loss of smell perhaps?

rini17• 3 years ago

And of course, since selenium compounds are said to smell even worse...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=031vrZAMEHU

jojobas• 3 years ago

The moment I saw that I knew I had to reproduce that. Turns out you can just buy all the required stuff.

pancrufty• 3 years ago

Selenium stinks alright

lovehashbrowns• 3 years ago

Ugh okay I’m gonna try to buy some from him and see what it smells like.

refurb• 3 years ago

I did some lab work on selenium a long while back.

The worst was when a reaction overheated and the chemicals decomposed.

The smell was truly revolting. It reminded me of skunk, burnt rubber tires and sewer.

cheshire137• 3 years ago

Lol I knew before clicking it would be NileRed.

martin_a• 3 years ago

I didn't really like chemistry in school, but NileRed makes me wish it was different. Great guy!

rkagerer• 3 years ago

Awesome. Although it's a pretty small lake. In the video he shows a map and mentions there were some houses 200m downwind.

pdpi• 3 years ago

If this is your first time reading one of these, Derek Lowe’s “things I won’t work with” series is a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

memling• 3 years ago

FOOF is my favorite. Come for an analysis of Streng's papers and stay for Satan's kimchee.

ikiris• 3 years ago

F is for Flags, they be of red.

erik_seaberg• 3 years ago

I first read https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-yo... so I will always have a soft spot for it.

"[...] it can potentially go on to “burn” things that you would normally consider already burnt to hell and gone, and a practical consequence of that is that it’ll start roaring reactions with things like bricks and asbestos tile."

rwmj• 3 years ago

FOOF - https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-wor...

cushychicken• 3 years ago

At seven hundred freaking degrees, fluorine starts to dissociate into monoatomic radicals, thereby losing its gentle and forgiving nature.

Referring to fluorine’s “gentle and forgiving nature” got a good laugh out of my wife, who has a chemistry degree. It also got me a good education about just how gross elemental fluorine is.

bayouborne• 3 years ago

The collection:

https://www.science.org/topic/blog-category/things-i-wont-wo...

LoganDark• 3 years ago

Thank you for this link! Always wanted to read the whole collection.

russfink• 3 years ago

PSYOPS potential?

EdwardCoffin• 3 years ago

Anyone thinking this might have potential as an unconventional weapon might find it interesting to read Neal Stephenson's Zodiac. The protagonist, a chemist-turned-environmental-activist, makes some Putrescine (a similarly stinky substance) for self defence.

xkcd-sucks• 3 years ago

Putrescine and cadaverine actually smell just like... Semen. Gross, overwhelming splooge. But not particularly incapacitating or vomit-inducing, looks like Neal didn't do his research.

Bradford pears also smell similar, though tending a bit more fishy.

(Grad school, a project next door involved making a whole library of polyamine derived chemical probes, so we got basically all the flavor notes of semen in succession. The lols outweighed the unpleasantness.)

actually_a_dog• 3 years ago

I'm a little disappointed by this article. After all, I'm sure the author knows that anything that stinks with sulfur can be made stinkier by substituting selenium! Selenoacetone is worse than thioacetone!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=031vrZAMEHU

voxadam• 3 years ago

If you're interested in other terrifying compounds be sure to read 'Ignition'.[0]

My footnote is for a scan of the original printing but I believe the book has have recently been reprinted in multiple formats. Regardless of the format you choose, it's a hell of a read.

[0] https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd...

Cthulhu_• 3 years ago

I've tried to read it, and while I can see it's an entertaining read, at the same time it reads like a long string of chemical compounds and formulas being read. I'd only recommend it if you have a better grasp of and interest in chemistry than I have.

masklinn2• 3 years ago

From my recollection (I haven't re-read it recently), it's pretty easy to skip the raw chem stuff if you're not interested.

Though that may be a skill I acquired from my youth misspent reading Alexandre Dumas and Jules Vernes (as writers of serials, padding chapters was a very common occurrence which makes for frustrating reads when you hit 5 pages of fishes in 20000 leagues under, the ability to quickly skim and skip is necessary to reach the end).

mhb• 3 years ago

I agree. I muddled through it because the non-technical 25% made it worthwhile and the writing was very nice.

amelius3• 3 years ago

Is this the stuff they use in legal pepperspray alternatives (in places where pepperspray is not legal)?

nibbleshifter4• 3 years ago

Not that I'm aware of.

It would be classed the same as pepper spray in the UK (a "noxious chemical").

The skunk lock and similar products that use a malodorous chemical are illegal in the UK for this reason.

There are "self defense sprays" sold in the UK and some other countries that just contain a dye, no irritant or malodorous substance, but even those are legally questionable at best - just there's been no case law yet that I'm aware of.

galangalalgol2• 3 years ago

That all seems a bit excessive doesn't it? Does that mean you can't carry a pocket knife either? I would be lost without my Leatherman or at least a swiss army knife.

jandrese• 3 years ago

More likely to be methyl mercaptan as that is frequently used as an odorant and is available from chemical suppliers.

AlbertCory• 3 years ago

For a not-all-that-fun time, go to eBay and search on that.

there was one answer, and it was for a prank device to detect that.

Plus I got a box inviting me to select the vehicle type this was for. I took one, and got a lot of miscellaneous stuff having nothing to do with thioacetone.

mnemotronic• 3 years ago

Sounds like a possible weapon. Not fatal or toxic but certain to temporarily disable troups downwind.

jamiek88• 3 years ago

Aaand you’ve just hit the problem with chemical weapons.

Wind shifts.

Before you know it your own troops are vomiting and choking on their uvulas.

mywacaday2• 3 years ago

How are smells transferred and detected far away after a few seconds when the air is not moving that fast?

qup• 3 years ago

They aren't. The air is moving that fast.

taneq• 3 years ago

A quarter mile in seconds? That’s brisk!

More likely, I guess, that the distance was up to a quarter mile and the time was as low as seconds, but for different observers at different distances.

Things I Won't Work With: Thioacetone (2009)

Related Stories