Making Something Stinkier Than Thioacetone: Selenoacetone, Selenols, and My Experience With Selenium
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 มิ.ย. 2024
- This video was sponsored by Brilliant! Keep exploring at brilliant.org/LabCoatz/. Get started for free, and hurry-the first 200 people get 20% off an annual premium subscription.
Back in the summer of 2022, I became the first person on TH-cam to post a video showing actual thioacetone. Most sources claim that this chemical is the stinkiest substance on Earth...so in this video, I decided to disprove that notion by making something far worse: thioacetone's evil twin, SELENOACETONE! Not only that, but I also made two other smelly selenium compounds called "selenols", which proved to be even worse! Was it risky? Yes. Was it worth it? To me, definitely.
Want to support LabCoatz? Then feel free to donate or join my Patreon page! It literally costs less that a cup of coffee (however, all selenol giveaways are finished as of July 2023):
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A special thanks to @BackYardScience2000 for donating some of his chemicals to my channel! If you ever need specialty reagents, like acetic anhydride or phosphorus pentoxide, be sure to check out his eBay store:
www.ebay.com/str/backyardscie...
Official BYS2K inventory list:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
NOTE ON THE SALE OF SELENIUM-BASED ODORANTS:
I am only selling "safe quantities" of the 1,4-butanediselenol, not multi-gram amounts. A drop of dilute solution is applied to a substrate, which is bottled up in a 0.5mL polypropylene vial, double bagged, and sent on its way in a bubble mailer. For safety and legal reasons, the compound is kept at trace levels: more than enough to smell, but not enough to cause serious harm. Remember, organoselenium compounds are considered to be toxic, which is why measurable amounts cannot be sent through the mail to unregistered individuals.
A WORD ON SAFETY:
I realize that some of you may be tempted to make the compounds I showed for yourself. If your intent is to purposefully expose another human to this compound (i.e. as a prank), think again. As I mentioned before, ORGANOSELENIUM COMPOUNDS ARE POISONOUS. At most, your body can only tolerate a few milligrams of selenium at once. Any more, and you might develop selenosis. Smelling these compounds is fairly safe, since only a few nanograms are actually inhaled at a time, but direct exposure (ingestion of the liquid, skin contact, etc.) can be harmful.
0:00 Intro sequence
0:43 Inciting events
1:50 How to beat thioacetone?
2:29 Selenoacetone
3:11 Getting around hydrogen selenide
4:08 Making aluminum selenide
5:43 ...too easy?
5:55 Selenols
7:20 Warning!
7:31 Making selenoacetone (dimer)
8:00 Making isopropaneselenol
9:48 Making 1,4-butanediselenol
10:27 Selenoacetone smell test
12:01 Isopropaneselenol smell test
13:29 1,4-butanediselenol smell test
16:44 Distance test
17:31 Final thoughts on selenium
18:16 Do you want to buy my stink?
18:44 Brilliant.org sponsorship segment
19:47 Conclusion and outro - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Keep exploring at brilliant.org/LabCoatz/. Get started for free, and hurry-the first 200 people get 20% off an annual premium subscription.
Pointer, take it or leave it: don't put the chemical in the title. People with short attention spans are more likely to click if it's a mystery.
If he was on top of things, he'd respond for valentines day.
Back in 1955, when I got an HO train set for Christmas, it came with a selenium rectifier. That was when I first learned Selenium dioxide was extremely toxic. Please take the warnings in this video extremely seriously.
=DUDE,MAKE *_THELLURORGANICS_* ,OKAY?????????????
............U'LL BE DEVASTATED OF IT'S ODOR....1 DROP SPILLED RESULTED IN 100,000 PEOPLE EVACUATED
The warning after the manufacturing process... hmmm.
Maybe mail some to Nilered as a final test to see if he actually has a sense of smell.
I doubt it, he is the piss chemist after all.
There's definitely precedent for that, what with the fart juice video on NileBlue where he was fine but people were dying around Nigel, and also phenomena like not smelling H2S after too much exposure to it.
y e s
he is definitely nose blind. so is this guy.
i think he should test his sense of smell, objectively, againts other people. not just stinky stuff, but all kinds of smell, at different levels of dilution, to see how sensitive each participants sense of smell is.
Possibly one the worst ideas one can have. Imagine how confused the mailman would be for smelling something awful for days in his van
If LabCoatz and NileRed ever did a collab for smelly chemistry, I think they would make a smell that is actually sentient and travels around on its own accord causing havoc.
*Reeking havoc
Ignoring that, I would highly enjoy seeing them collaborate and create the most nasty and disgusting stench to ever exist.
You are describing the Smell of Foul Ole Ron, which I believe would be best left on the alleys of Ankh-Morpork.
@@handpaper6871 thank you, I was going to comment this but I wasn't sure if anyone would get it
how many kilometers LabCoatz and NileRed are to each other ? -)
Soon enough, you'll gain an immunity to bad smells just like a certain TH-camr.
Is it the same person that I’m thinking of: Nigel from Nilered?
I worked as a flavor chemist and some of the worst things I've smelled were mercaptans. Some were stong enough that they'd make my coworkers puke if I opened them in the lab. Fun stuff
Sounds like a topic for another video. Would be cool to have a different kind of smell compared to the thioacetone and selenium based molecules.
In 2013, there was a leak in a plant producing that stuff in Rouen, France. The stench was felt in Paris where I live, over 100 km away. I still remember it (it happened on my birthday, it helps), it was like the whole city had been doused in diesel. Unbelievable.
Someone in my lab works on thiols, they spilled a full vial and had to use 5-6L of ethanol to clean it up
@@ryandoyle3413 I'd be extremely surprised if there wasn't still a residual smell. Stuff is crazy. One of the thiols I worked with would make your piss stink after just smelling it.
Ohhh yes, mercaptans are fucking vile. Although, while they're uniquely disgusting, they're not necessarily overpowering in their stench (imo).
i love how all of the chemistry youtubers refer to each other occasionally, and i especially love your reference to E&F
I've done some stuff for video that would look pretty sketchy to a passing observer, but you've set a new bar here: 9:00
I salute you.
Hey, nice to see you here man, glad you enjoyed the video! I salute you right back; it's channels like yours that inspire channels like mine.
Only comment let’s change that
Let's be honest, this is probably one of the least sketchy things someone could see at a park in Oklahoma.
Perhaps it's just me, but I haven't thought of any of your things as being sketchy. Fun perhaps, but not sketchy🙂
@Nick Knight To an uninformed lay person, wearing a respirator and mixing chemicals in your trunk totally looks like Breaking Bad.
You're a pioneer man, can't wait for the finale! Just be careful with the tellurium, I've heard some horror stories. You don't want "tellurium breath" it sounds genuinely awful.
I was so worried that I would get the "selenium stench" from this endeavor, but I never did (even though I handled the selenium directly at times, and inhaled small amounts during the tests). Hopefully tellurium is in the same ballpark!
After (mis)handling some broken Peltier device my sweat used to smell like moldy cheese mixed with rotten cabage for like a month. Don't recommend, fortunately it went away. The breath was ok though.
@@LabCoatz_Science
Try other stink champions like n-butyl selenol, putrescine, 1-methyl indole (the one with the methyl group on the nitrogen, not 3-methyl indole), n-butyl isocyanide and 2-thiopheneselenol.
Together those are the royal flush of olfactory horrors.
LOL @ tellurium breath!
@@cezarcatalin1406 what does n-butyl isocyanide smell like? is there anything you can compare it to?
I honestly wondered about selenoacetone when ywatching the thioacetone video. A while back, when tributyl phosphine sulfide and selenide became commercially available again, he sent an email to the entire group to warn us against buying the selenide saying "I do not recommend buying the selenium analog because of the very bad smell of selenium compounds." As it turns out, a lab where he spent some time as a postdoc had a "stinky room" where, some 20 years prior, an incident involving some Se(-II) compound had occurred, and the room still reeked!
naughty grad students get sent to the Stinky Room to atone for their crimes
@@_iakvb771 Rule 1 of the stinky room. Talking about the stinky room to new people is very funny and we should do it as much as possible to bait them into visiting it.
@@_iakvb771to a(ce)tone for their crimes was right there
The triThio disappeared pretty quickly when airborne, only some tubing stank after a week long bleach bath for the equipment. But then again tri deadens the smell. Handled 3grams and after an initial half second hit, i smelled nothing (of the Stink). Still smelled everything else, my food, hot car motor. How weird.
So the selenium smell sticks around? Makes sense. Or there could just be a single drop or piece that got missed.
My synth of tri was odorless, pride myself on good scrubbing. Two aquarium bubblers in series through bleach. Sadly for me there was no way to purify it without a scrubbing fume hood. Being out in the countryside does not help, it got smelt 4 miles away while I still smelt nothing trying to wash the solution.
Treacherous stuff. Do not do it.
The danger is that those not exposed to it b before experience it like the first time you've smelt it. It's almost a tool of terrorism, one that oneself might quickly grow numb to, think a synthesis failed, etc.
Don't do it
Man this was fun. I was worried for your safety, but it was fun😂. Time to make some telluroketone 😀
When selenium semiconductor devices burn out the smell is pretty intense and vile. They’re getting less common but I had at least one selenium photocell as a boy nearly 50 years ago.
Big Clive has spoken feelingly about the stench in some videos and I think has burned out at least one or two in them.
I have worked with them and bringing one of these old reekers into the office was akin to an act of war .
This was because a burned up power supply with selenium rectifiers was a very common " nuclear option " in the endless prank wars that we engaged in .
Fun times .
I have been into electronics since I was a child, and I can remember the old selenium rectifiers would absolutely STINK when they went bad or shorted out.
yep, i've come across an odd one or 2 that were a bit stinky when not in use, still have one
in german they were called Gleichriechter (spoken "gleich riecht er"), which is a derivation from the word Gleichrichter (Rectifier). it translates into "(it) smells right away" or "soon he smells"
@@gamerpaddy hehe, yeah, i 've seen that term on german sets and service data
@@gamerpaddy Wow thank you for that. Did not know that at all ;)
Same here. That burnt selenium rectifier smell is one that stays with you for life !
NIce video. Just a note, for your future safety. Whenever you want or must use the respirator always do the following: wear in and after it is sealed exhale all the air in your lungs. That will push all contaminated air from the space between your face and the respirator. If you wear it and getting a deep breath without it you basically take a deep breath with all that nasty stuff you want to be protected of. It may be not so important here but if you ever come to work with larger quantities then the little wrong breath may cost you life
Epic. Here's to Nile's peer review sending you to 50k subscribers and beyond. Also have you considered working with Ordnance Lab for your flux compression generator project? They'd be all about featuring such an exotic shape charge, have their own range, licensing, HE, etc.
Now that is something I would love to see.
Thioacetone is the best Valentine's Day gift a woman could ever want! :D
The worst smell I've ever experienced was after leaving sprouted garlic in a jar of water for a long time without changing it. I wonder if I was smelling organoselenium compounds since it seems to be a similar smell to what you're describing, and selenium compounds are found in garlic!
Captain Mercaptan , Earl of Stench !
Lots of old electronics had selenium rectifiers in them and when they blew the stench was incredible .
You could build an electronic stink bomb from old selenium rectifiers .
Long years ago one of my talents was successfully making and deploying such things .
Not an easy task , as it is very difficult to avoid getting caught , just like deploying a suicide vest .
Anyway , I will await the Tellurium Chronicles .
You might also check out some phosphorus chemistry and also consider concoctions of multiple substances , such as butyric acid , and cadaverine or whatever you care to combine .
Sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts .
I get the feeling you have your own pair of FBI agents assigned to you.
I would say that you have your own agent, but with a name like that and comments like this....they probably gave you two just in case :D
I don't know why but these past few weeks I'm really into watching people make the smelliest substances
Ah, you too? 😊
😂
Video: "Worse than thioacetone"
NileRed: hold my island...
having made small amounts of hydrogen selinide, I am already anxiously watching
I'm just grateful that I didn't experience the flu-like effects of more serious exposure...or worse, selenosis!
@@LabCoatz_Science you legit are - you guys smelled them WAY too close to your face
Your dad is a freaking trooper!
Going out with you doing these tests, handling and smelling the toxic and smelly chemicals without PPE.
Your parents allowing you to do these experiments in the garage. (Most would see it as mad science and try and either stop completely, or gently try and persuade you to do other pursuits)
I salute you and both your parents sir! Thanks for sharing with us
You're not concerned about their health and long term consequences?
@@neomt2 @neomt2 ?
I am, I actually left another comment on this video about the filter of his respirator as he shouldn't be able to smell through it if it is fitted and working properly.
But his dad is an adult and chose to not wear PPE. He said in another video that his dad takes and does mobile radiology tests (you can actually see the machine in the shots where he's mixing in the back of the vehicle.) It is not like his dad is being subjected to anything blindly. He's obviously intelligent and also behind the camera for most of not all this video. So he made an informed decision.
You don't have to agree with someone's decision, but when it involves the possibility of hurting or saving themselves and doesn't affect others, it's their choice.
I would've thought we all would've learned this with the whole heated debate the whole world went through recently about vaccines, etc... Guess not.
I was more inspired by parents that just support their children and the things they are interested in and passionate about, even if supporting those things is a burden or nuisance to themselves while they support their children. (Garage space being used instead of being available for storing what they want. Driving out to secluded spots to help film and be a second opinion on tests of smell or whatever, instead of staying home to watch a game or something they would rather do.) So many parents shut down their childrens interests or passions as soon as it interferes with what the parent wants to do.
"This one came straight from hell."
I laughed way too loud.
It's always nice to see wonderful nutcases standing on the shoulders of other wonderful nutcases and sometimes even doing a kind of insane human pyramid of chemistry ;-) :-) :-)
I for one am glad Nile sent us your way. Been loving your content!
I'm very glad that you and nilered are able to handle these reactions and I am glad that he refured you because I can't tell you how much I love chemistry and never tire of reactions
Great video! Watching such interesting chemistry videos from channels like yours and NileRed’s always makes me wish I studied chemistry in university 🙂.
I love how relaxed you are. If anyone should do these things it should be you. Subscribed.
Great video! Loved the Extractions & ire reference
Now more and new sponsors along with massive channel growth. Well deserved
OK, so next up is tellurium, and after that… oh. Oh, no.
Maybe when I'm an old geezer on my death bed, I'll make my last wish be to smell the polonium analogues, lol.
Thanks for this impressive test! Now we are eagerly waiting for the tellurium analogues!
They're rather unstable, however, especially hydrogen telluride.
Just sent some funds your way from Fresno, CA! Excited for my little package to arrive. Keep up the good work!
i watched the whole video, and now i have to watch them all, truly congratulations for all the work you do, greetings from Italy!
Great video! Really cool watching your channel grow this fast - you deserve it. The most terrifying part is it revealed that I already have the reagents and equipment to make this and that is dangerously tempting.
Go for it, it's worth the experience in my opinion, but then again I'm insane, lol! Just doing eat it or over-expose yourself to selenium, and you'll be fine.
This guy is an entire O Chem lab all by himself. If he works in a big lab somewhere someday he is gonna be a valuable asset.
This comment gives me flashbacks from college quantitative analysis. ;)
@@colemannielsen2099 oh hey Coleman! What are the odds I’d run into a friend on TH-cam? 😂
Haha it’s a small world for science peeps 😂 did Nile Red send you here too?
@@colemannielsen2099 I just found it when I looked something up. I recently followed Nile though.
Absolutely amazing video, loved every second of this, you deserve so much more than 26k subs, hope you grow to huge numbers.
This is a great video, well shot, edited, informative great job... More ppl should see this very entertaining and educational!!!! Rising star!!
Tellurium costs only $32 per 100g so not as expensive as it’s rarity would suggest. I’m very curious to see how bad it smells! You could perhaps publish these findings in a research article!
I'll definitely be trying tellurium this summer, as soon as school gets out!
@LabCoatz If you have a peltier cooler you have bismuth telluride, and since bismuth has such a low melting point it's very easy to inadvertently melt a peltier device if you don't cool it properly... as I found out the hard way, so it's not necessary you smash it or anything to get the contents out of the porcelain sandwich.
Organotellurium is a great way to poison yourself right quick
It would be interesting to find some skunks in the campground and see if you can make the shunks run from the smell ;-) . Great work!
Glad to see you followed through with selenium promised after the NileRed drop. Congrats on the 20k new followers, too. Looking forward to what oddities you come up with next.
your killing it man, def one of the top chemistry channels on youtube, and your subscribers will reflect it soon
Fam really made a shoutout to like 6 different TH-cam chemists in this one video.
Also, I am totally investing in this. We have wanted to have the chemical that smells of rotting fish (trimethylamine, I believe) for a long time. That is still on the agenda, but since this is being offered so openly, I am definitely not passing it up. I can't wait to have our mother question us to an extreme level.
yo any ideas who's the guy at 2:17 i really wanna check his video out
@@sivvamsudhir2636 It's explosions and fire
@@alexgutter8509 thankss
@@sivvamsudhir2636No problem ! Have a great day !!
I just about died laughing from the godfather of crazy youtube chemistry bit because it's so true. Love E&F!
i found your channel through nilered and i just wanna say, very excited to have more high quality chem youtubers! subscribed and can't wait for more
I hope this channel explodes (in a good way), you definitely deserve it!
Ever since first reading Derek Lowe's discussion about thioacetone in his blog, I'd always wondered how bad they (thiols) could actually be. It seems like maybe their potency is slightly overstated, but it's nice to see the selenium analogues hold up to their vile reputation lol.
To bad Derek has seemingly abandoned TIWW and How Not To Do It type of stories .
They were absolute gems and many of the comments were pure gold as well .
I understand why he's apparently stopped doing such content, as eventually the things one wouldn't work with and the stories of chemistry mishaps must eventually run dry. But it's still great stuff to revisit. Seems like every time I go back for a re-read, I feel inspired to open Max Gergel's "Ignition", which isn't a bad impulse at all!
From what I can tell, the stories are accurate, but a main part of it is ignored. The chemists whose friends ended up having to prove to them thioacetone was vile never said they smelt anything that bad. The way it was proven to them was by showing the detectable range, rather than the potency. I think the main problem is that chemists with experience smelling weird compounds eventually have their sense of smell dulled to the point that something capable of knocking out a sensitive person doesn't make them feel that much.
That was the case with NileRed's videos too, with his friends having a far, far stronger reaction than he did to all the smelly compounds he made. I imagine this guy's dad, constantly being with him in all these experiments, also has a more 'defended' sense of smell.
In the worst of the stories, the people that got affected the worst were always common folk, and there was no mention of the exact percentage of the people that got knocked out, other than the fact that it wasn't a majority. The closest we got to seeing an actual average person react to the smell of thioacetone was NileRed's friend, who was still definitely compromised as he smelt the compounds used in producing thioacetone and probably smelt a variety of other chemicals.
I think we're just underestimating how wildly a person's sense of smell can vary in strength.
Lol indeed! Just for the record. “Ignition” is by John Clark - mr Gergel wrote something similarly entertaining, but I don’t recall the name.
@ Oh gosh, you're right! Gergel's was "Excuse Me Sir, Would You Like to Buy a Kilo of Isopropyl Bromide?"
Good thing I am German so I can read those articles easy (although I admit that the translation is almost perfect now). Only downside is that here in Germany the amount of restrictions gives me headaches (can‘t even buy Peroxid solution concentrated more than 12%). I’d dunno how this is in other country‘s but damn it i just wanted to make some proper piranha solution (oh and you also can‘t buy any Sulfuric acid with a concentration beyond 15%, but in contrast to hydrogen peroxide you can just distill it). Oh yeah same goes for nitric acid, I mean let‘s be honest, what am I supposed to do with a concentration of just ONE percent…
Add sulfuric acid to a nitrate salt, pure nitric acid after distillation :)
They're just scared Germans might almost take the world over again because Germans are too awesome for their own good so they restrict the heck out of you lol
I was waiting for this!
You are awesome ! Greetings from Greece, I look forward to the corresponding experiment with tellurium !
Great content mate! You should really wear safety glasses when handling acids man you don't want to go blind
I wonder if you could get a *bunch* of: cabbage, asparagus, garlic, whole eggs, and durian fruit. Then toss them all in a pressure cooker... BUT, instead of the weight installed, put a short chunk of rubber hose in order to adapt your condenser. _(might need a splitter, to give you an access point so you can periodically add more water... or, alcohol? 🤔)_
*ALL* in an effort to get all of those stenches concentrated down. _Just_ to see how all of these *food-grade* stinks compare when combined... 😊👍
Just add some rotting fish too let it all rot and ferment. 😵😲💩
@@christopherleubner6633 Surströmming distillate? Sounds fun :D
@Lil Yeet Now I've gotta ask....
Did you do it for chemical science?
Or for culinary science?
🤓
@@christopherleubner6633 God that sounds awful!
*_SPEAKING_* of scat... At this point, I feel like the pressure cooker will never get that stank out of it, so.... _might as well_ toss in all the bodily fluids as well! 🥴🤢
If anything, it'll yield the best non-clickbait, clickbait title! 🤣
_"I Combined All of These Things for_
_SCIENCE, and _*_THIS_*_ Happened..."_
I love the periodic videos entro.such a under rated channel
I love this intro idea, great work!
Selenium truly is the worst. I've had two encounters with broken selenium rectifiers in my life. Once accidental - a PSU capacitor shorted out and blew up the rectifier. I ran out of the room with the device in my arms practically gagging, to let the device waft out outside.
Once intentional. I had a known bad rectifier. Put it outside, on my balcony. Closed the door. Powered it up. No i didn't like my neighbors. I could smell the stench through the door. It is POTENT.
The smell is a mixture of rotten broccoli, bad farts and rotten eggs. M
LabCoatz 2024: making telluroacetone
Awesome video. Thank you for the subtitles!
New subscriber here. Nice concept, and video. Glad to see someone doing full format chemistry again. Nile mostly does shorts nowadays, and I'm not into it.
Me neither. His channel went downhill and he doesn't even really do chem anymore. Just quick shorts that make him money. That's all....
As a swede, I wonder how it compares to surströmming.
I'll be honest, the reaction to the smell in the video seems,, kinda tame. But I guess you're not supposed to eat it, like with surströmming, so there is that factor to account for. ;)
I kind of like the smell of surströmming, so I'd imagine that this is a LOT worse. Or ... better? Would love to smell it sometime.
Is there a best smelling compound? I’d like a sample of that one.
Honestly, that award would probably go to vanillin. If I recall correctly, it has one of the lowest odor thresholds, and it smells good to most people, so you could argue that it is the best-smelling "smelliest compound".
@@LabCoatz_Science : I’ve never smelled isolated vanillin, but I want to now. Of course I’ve smelled vanilla which contains hundreds of other compounds besides vanillin, but only monsters don’t like the smell of vanilla so you’re probably right. Thanks for sharing all of your hard work!
😂 😂 That intro was funny, also your production is looking pretty professional. Great vid.
40 seconds in and I'm waiting for this channel and video to blow upppp. Keep up the great stuff!
I'm not sure if the USPS has a "no mail" list, but I'm sure if you mail that stuff around you might just find out... :/
There is a restriction on poisonous materials, and selenium is toxic (although there isn't any data available on most selenols or selones). To get around it, I'm only sending trace amounts: enough to be smelled, but not enough to be measured or considered dangerous!
@@LabCoatz_Science Keep us posted, then... :P (I'll get me non-lab-coat...)
So excited... im sure you can ship me 5 grams of *coughs* not this substance
First time viewer and instant subscriber here. Love your content absolutely a gem and especially how you explained your process with that in situ solution! A bit of constructive criticism though, I am a chemistry lover even though I'm from a totally different background and for me the theoretical part about selenols was a bit of a blur, would be stoked to see theoretical stuff in a more exciting form.
hey labcoatz! nice job! also congrats on 20k subs!
I thought it was amusing when you said you up-played your reaction to the thioacetone... in all these chemical tests you don't really to appear to be _that_ offended by the smell from your visible reaction. No gagging and constant retching.
Yeah, I've never smelled something bad enough to trigger my gag reflex. Most smells just don't offend me that much! But there are some things that make me cough and pull away, like pure chlorine gas, acid vapors, or irritants like chloramine.
Nilered: "It's not that bad..." 😂
Before my time in electronics selenium was used in rectifiers. I've heard many old-timers say that when one of those old selenium rectifiers shorted out the smell could clear the room - and that's just from the metal burning a bit.
I love seeing periodic table of videos at the start!
ah shit.. here we ho again
God bless German Wikipedia 🙏🙏🙏
What would we do without Germany!
Awesome. Found your channel through NileRed, and can't wait to see more.
Nice video, organoselenium chemistry is very interesting topic. Keep up the good work!
You're a legend. Thanks for your work
High quality content; I look forward to more ❤
Shout out to Periodic Table! Genius of a man. Glad you are a fan!
Keep going dude!!!
It is so entertaining to watch you guys doing all that stuff😎
Really cool you pulled this off! 👌
Great video and appreciate the 4K resolution!
Thanks, there will be more coming out like this! My next episode will be covering isocyanides, which somehow managed to be even worse than these selenium compounds!
This is awesome! Can't wait for the tellurium!
I’m glad NileRed gave you a shoutout. He really led me to a hidden gem with your channel. I believe you’ll be just as big as he is someday
Now I am being hyped up for the NileRed reaction video creating an even more potent Eau de death. Or worse, a NileBlue video. Good Video, especially the intro
I dont know how i ended up in this part of youtube but man am i here for this
Very glad NileRed shouted you out, I have so much content to catch up on! Great video
Glad you like the content, although I must admit: the newer stuff is much better quality than the old stuff, haha! Hopefully I can continue to provide you with engaging content, my next video will be covering how I distilled a superacid in my garage, if that sounds interesting!
@@LabCoatz_Science half the fun is watching the evolution of the content! Im looking forward to the superacid distillation; im only comfortable just messing around with glacial acetic acid lol
Niles video introduced me to your channel and glad it did! Bravo sir! Ever cooked cabbage on a stove in water? We have a glue factory near us and the whole area smells like cabbage and clutch (like when your clutch burns out in your car). The smell floods the area for miles. It takes getting used to i know a few people who work near it (within 200m) and they were being physically sick at the start when it opened up. This place also does plastics and other materials (government contracts so its a secret with some stuff they brew up)
Great vid!
Wow. Did Nigel's shoutout really lead to you gaining 23k subs? That's amazing.
I have been scouring youtube for this video for months! Thank you! Also, as somebody nearly killed by hydrogen selenide, kudos for the courage.
@@Paonporteur It isn't anything particularly interesting: I diluted potassium selenide outside of an aspiration hood (because, idiot); the solution's pH was *theoretically* high enough that no hydrogen selenide should have evolved, but wasn't mixed well enough, so it did. Luckily, it only lasted a couple of seconds, then the potassium oxide at the bottom of the vial (i.e., under the selenide) decided to dissolve as well. Not a great two seconds, though.
@@Paonporteur Honestly, no. I read everywhere that it smells horrible, but I think it has the same problem as hydrogen sulphide, i.e., in higher concentrations, it interferes with the functionality of your olfactory nerves, and you can't smell it any longer. I knew I was inhaling it because it feels like your lungs are paralysed, a feeling that starts in your throat and proceeds down your airways, but I couldn't smell anything, not even before the exposure symptoms or after the whiff was over.
If it can be of any help, a Polish colleague of mine, who had smelled in trace concentration, described it as resembling the smell of rotten horseradish, referring, however, to a type of horseradish they eat in Poland, and I am not entirely sure it's the "standard" one.
Awesome video!
Yes finally a video on the selenium compound smells! I've wanted to see this since I heard Periodic Videos mentioning how bad it smelled and how it cleared out an entire building. I wonder if the next best step after this is tellurium compounds that smell and maybe one day POLONIUM COMPOUNDS 🤒
Now, that was one delicious video!
It's interesting that you mentioned cooked asparagus. I worked around ethyl mercaptan early in my career, and to me it smells like creamed corn in strong concentrations and not at all like the typical "natural gas" smell. once you get down wind a bit, it takes on the characteristic odor.
15:55 once his dad puts his arm down, he really looks like he's green-screened in. Everything else in the photo is blurred but he's crystal clear and positioned right at a straight line to mask off of.
That intro!!! With you watching intently!
As someone who did extensive work with organoselenides for my PhD work, there are a few points that I should bring up. While acidic conditions increase longevity, any selenols you made pretty quickly oxidize to diselenides when exposed to oxygen in the atmosphere, much, much quicker to thiols, especially smaller molecules like the ones in the video. To this, you were most likely smelling a variant diselenide instead. For a more efficient, but technically challenging synthesis of your selenols, I would recommend going through Grignard reagents than transmetalate with the selenium metal, much more options are available at that point for potential future videos.
I considered the Grignard pathway, but ultimately settled on this method, since it was basically a "one-pot" synthesis with claimed yields greater than 90%. With the 1,4-butanediselenol, I think I was mainly smelling the diselenol, since we made it and smelled it within a timespan of roughly thirty minutes, and it was sealed off from the air for most of the time, so very little oxidized (in contrast to my isopropaneselenol and diselenoacetone samples, which were not sealed off and consequently had visible signs of oxidation).
The intro alone had me stoked for the rest of the video.
Ahhh I love professor Martyn! Been a fan of their channel for years
Awesome content.
Colleague of mine worked with organoselenium compounds in our shared lab - I can confirm. The smell is horrible, lingering and made all of us celebrate the day when he finished his PhD even more - great guy though. It has been three months and we still get waves of the smell occasionally.