As you go down the group, the smells only get worse. You don't smell oxygen (you're soaking in it), sulfur compounds tend to be pretty stinky, selenium compounds are pretty rank, and purportedly, tellurium compounds are the worst.
Exposure to even elemental Te can result in your body producing myriad organotellurides (yep, this is where Telluride the town gets its name). As the estimable Derek Lowe points out, even selenium stinks something fierce. If you read through the comments, he mentions that tellurium-exposed individuals have had to go so far as to take leaves of absence to get over the stench. From his blog:
One of the simpler selenium-rich compounds, for example, is carbon diselenide, an exact homolog of the carbon dioxide in your breath and in your glass of soda. Instead of a gas, the selenide is an oily liquid with a higher boiling point than water. Most of us organic chemists have never seen it.
Which is just fine. The first report of the compound in the chemical literature is from a German university group from 1936, and it was a memorable debut. A colleague of mine had a copy of this paper in his files, and he treasured a footnote from the experimental section which related how the vapors had unfortunately escaped the laboratory and forced the evacuation of a nearby village. The authors stressed the point that its aroma was like nothing that they'd ever encountered.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
That just makes me want to smell Carbon diselenide more, to know what all the fuss is about!
A million years ago I was working in a University analytical research lab which was looking at various selective precipitants. One guy had worked on a furan derivative, the next on a thiophene derivative and, when I arrived as a research technician, a guy was working on a selenophene derivative. When I finished my "apprenticeship", the boss offered me a place to do a PhD on............ I emigrated
Makes me wonder about the Polonium poisoning case from a while back. The guy who was exposed must have been the winner of the Worst Breath Ever award.
Clean carbon disulfide Officially has a not unpleasant ethereal odor. It doesn't get that clean. Needing a woeful clean 100 ml I slowly distilled a pot through copper wool packing (to pull reduced sulfur species). Discard the first 15%, collect 700% middle cut. It boiled OK and it looked OK. The next day the sealed flask held a beautiful purple liquid. Its scent was not especially unpleasant but I still suspected an impurity was present.
CSe_2? No thank you.
When are you going to do one on tyrillium (sp?) - the fuel that powers Battlestar Galactica? Make something up! It'll be fun!
Yeah, next april fools you should do something on dilithium crystals.
Tellurium dioxide is used for many purposes, including as anti-corrosive agents; single crystals; materials for electronic element; conditional glass formers; and agents to help improve the machinability of special iron and steel products.