http://www.moleculeoftheday.com/2006/07/28/grapefruit-mercaptan-not-all-sulfur-stinks/ Molecules: You'd Better Learn to Live With Them Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:19:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.2 http://www.moleculeoftheday.com/2006/07/28/grapefruit-mercaptan-not-all-sulfur-stinks/#comment-2758 Sat, 29 Jul 2006 04:05:06 +0000 http://www.moleculeoftheday.com/2006/07/28/grapefruit-mercaptan-not-all-sulfur-stinks/#comment-2758 As you go down the series they get worse. If you search for compounds of the chalcogens, they all smell terrible. One memorable compound (a selenide?) caused a town to be evacuated. One (apocryphal?) story said that tellurium-contaminated faculty had to leave work for months or years to not have such a terrible smell. Apparently one skunk odorant is an alkyl selenide (a thiol analogue). As you go down the series they get worse. If you search for compounds of the chalcogens, they all smell terrible. One memorable compound (a selenide?) caused a town to be evacuated. One (apocryphal?) story said that tellurium-contaminated faculty had to leave work for months or years to not have such a terrible smell. Apparently one skunk odorant is an alkyl selenide (a thiol analogue).

]]> http://www.moleculeoftheday.com/2006/07/28/grapefruit-mercaptan-not-all-sulfur-stinks/#comment-2757 Sat, 29 Jul 2006 03:25:04 +0000 http://www.moleculeoftheday.com/2006/07/28/grapefruit-mercaptan-not-all-sulfur-stinks/#comment-2757 Ah, that explains the tellurium-breath phenomenon! "Tellurium-breath" sounds like an insult that a really dorky third grader would use. Also, <a href="http://www.corante.com/pipeline/archives/2005/03/03/things_i_wont_work_with_carbon_diselenide.php" rel="nofollow">this post</a> from the Pipeline looks kinda cool. Ah, that explains the tellurium-breath phenomenon! “Tellurium-breath” sounds like an insult that a really dorky third grader would use. Also, this post from the Pipeline looks kinda cool.

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