Earlier today I was making solutions of KBr and KI and noticed they smelled a bit sweet and had a hard to describe hospital like smell. I've made
solutions of KBr and KI before but never noticed this, does anyone know what it might be?forgottenpassword - 3-4-2014 at 14:30
Probably bromine and iodine. Iodide solutions often have a yellow colour due to iodine. The nose is very sensitive to certain odours.thesmug - 3-4-2014 at 15:36
Probably bromine and iodine. Iodide solutions often have a yellow colour due to iodine. The nose is very sensitive to certain odours.
I originally thought that but it doesn't smell like iodine at all (I have some iodine crystals to compare with). I don't know what bromine smells like
but people say it smells really bad, and my solutions smell very good.HgDinis25 - 3-4-2014 at 15:37
Maybe solvent contaminations in your reagents? How did you prepare them?
Diethyl ether is often described as having a hospital smell...thesmug - 3-4-2014 at 17:00
I personally didn't prepare the reagents, but the solutions were in distilled water, so I really seriously doubt it was from the water.HgDinis25 - 4-4-2014 at 09:07
With all due respect, if you're saying the solutions are in distilled water, than you only have water and the halide. Neither the water nor the halide
give off smell. So, you have to assume contamination.elementcollector1 - 4-4-2014 at 09:13
How pure was the salt? If it's anything like food grade, they often contain additives such as anti-clumping agents.Zyklon-A - 4-4-2014 at 09:23
My KBr gives no smell in solution or the solid salt. I don't have any KI, but I bet the same is true if it's pure. BTW, bromine smells very similar to
chlorine, but not quite as bad.forgottenpassword - 4-4-2014 at 09:32
Maybe a cleaner had just mopped the floor? thesmug - 4-4-2014 at 15:10
How pure was the salt? If it's anything like food grade, they often contain additives such as anti-clumping agents.
ACS grade, definitely didn't have any anti-clumping agent (it was in a solid block inside its container). It was from Elemental Scientific. I
suspect contamination from their manufacturing process.HgDinis25 - 4-4-2014 at 15:52
ACS grade with smelly contamination? Not happening...thesmug - 5-4-2014 at 17:42
Yeah, I thought that too. The only thing left would be contamination on the inside of the bottles I used. ScienceHideout - 5-4-2014 at 18:08
With all due respect to elemental scientific, a couple years ago I received NaF that was blue... I like to give all my chemicals the benefit of the
doubt and think that they are pure, but if anything ever goes wrong, I blame it on a purity issue. Anyone can dump "No Salt" into a bottle and write
KCl, ACS grade on it. It is whether they get caught or not that matters... not to mention moral and ethical issues that come with that.thesmug - 5-4-2014 at 18:13
Did you ever find out what made it blue?ScienceHideout - 5-4-2014 at 18:58
I suspect that it was not originally intended as use as a laboratory reagent, and the company who produced it dyed it blue so people don't mistake it
for something else... Being a chemist, whenever I see white powder I think, "Sodium chloride, calcium chloride... or mercury chloride... I won't take
a chance!" But someone else might put it on their French fries if it is not blue. deltaH - 6-4-2014 at 01:02
Did your distilled water per chance come from an area where MTBE water contamination is known? MTBE is slightly soluble in water and has found it's
way into some water supplies. It is problematic because it distills over with the water. Adding an ionic salt to the water, however, may cause a
salting out effect and cause it's odour to be more noticable. If this is true, you should have similar results by dissolving even table salt in the
same water you used. Do you still have a batch of that specific water left over? I'd suggest saturating it with table salt and taking a wiff
MTBE's smell is described as ethereal with a slight mintyness. There are also other oxygenates used by the petrochemical industry that may be
responsible, for example TAME and ETBE.
