brisance
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dibutyl telluride
I wasn't sure if this should have gone in miscellaneous or biochemistry. Sorry If I placed it wrongly.
I have a 30g sample of tellurium and I am interested in how I could prepare dibutyl telluride from my sample.
I thoroughly searched google but found nothing. Could syntheses for dibutyl ether or sulfide be applied toward those of telluride?
Does anyone know how I would synthesize Dibutyl telluride?
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Nick F
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Mmmm.... smelly.
Sounds toxic too, and I suspect it would be a terrible way to die. Perhaps it is not too toxic, but I'd be careful with anything like that. I
can't think of any way to make it that wouldn't involve chemicals that I know are extremely toxic (and by that I mean 1h LC50's in the
<1ppm range).
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JohnWW
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It would be extremely toxic, due to its volatility and ease of bonding to the Fe in hemoglobin. Like mercaptans, and especially selenomercaptans, it
would have an extremely powerful odor, much worse than rotten eggs or rotten garlic. Like Se compounds, Te probably also interferes with S metabolism,
via thioaminoacids, in anything above very small trace concentrations.
Are these the reasons why you want to make dibutyltellurium?
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brisance
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Yeah. I want to make it because of its horrible odor. In fact, I guess my goal isn't to make specifically dibutyl telluride, but rather just to
make some compound that is extremely malodorous (and preferably not toxic).
I just happen to have some telluride. However, I'm very much interested in bad smelling compounds if anybody has some ideas. (preferably easy
to make)
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searat
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What is the chem fomula for Dibutyl telluride?
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The_Davster
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(C<sub>4</sub>H<sub>9</sub> <sub>2</sub>Te
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I am a fish
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A non-toxic tellurium compound is essentially an oxymoron. Whilst there probably are a few tellurium compounds that are non-toxic by virtue of a low
bioavailability, anything that can be smelt is unlikely to fall into this category.
If you want to make a foul smelling (and extremely dangerous) gas, try hydrogen telluride. It can be prepared by heating tellurium powder with iron
powder, to form iron telluride, and then dissolving this in an acid.
If you're stupid enough to try this, use very very small quantities. If you suddenly stop posting to the forum, we'll know what has
happened.
1f `/0u (4|\\| |234d 7|-|15, `/0u |234||`/ |\\|33d 70 937 0u7 /\\/\\0|23.
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alchemie
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| Quote: | Originally posted by brisance
Yeah. I want to make it because of its horrible odor. In fact, I guess my goal isn't to make specifically dibutyl telluride, but rather just to
make some compound that is extremely malodorous (and preferably not toxic).
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If you want foul-smelling (relatively) non-toxic compounds go for thiols.
Thiols should be safer to handle than Tellurium compounds and still have that fine odorific effect.
Pyridine also has a "nice" smell, most amines do.
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Swedish Chef
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I once made lithiumbutylselenolate (from amorphous selenium and butyllithium in THF). This stuff has a really strong, shit-like and foul odour.
I'm pretty sure u don't wanna make this. 
The most hidious compound i have ever made was a EtSe-substituted aniline. The overall yield was very low, i only isolated 1 droplet, but the smell...
made me almost instantly throw up. It made me think of some rotting seaweed or algea, hardly to discribe, not even close to the nasty smell of SCl2 or
S2Cl2.
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garage chemist
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If you want something that is cheap and easy to prepare and stinks horrible, make diethyl sulfide.
(C2H5)2S is a major component of the smell from your mouth when you didn't brush your teeth for several days, but a thousand times more
concentrated. I made it once, and I'm not going to make it again.
Just boil some sulfur with dilute (10- 20%) NaOH solution until the solution is orange-red. You now have a solution of sodium sulfide (and
polysulfide, but that doesn't disturb).
Let it cool down, and mix it with a few ml of ethyl bromide in a hermetically closeable vessel. Close the vessel, shake it a while and warm it gently.
Open the vessel, and the mentioned "smell" should greet you.
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brisance
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To be honest, I have no access to:
ethyl bromide
selenium
butyllithium
THF
I don't have my own lab and I'm certain my school won't just let me borrow some of those chemicals without a good reason (not a good
reason: I want to make something with an awful smell).
Any ideas with more readily available reagants? Preferably something more rank than ammonium sulfide, or the likes.
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garage chemist
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Ethyl bromide can be made easily from NaBr (from pool shops), H2SO4 (drain opener) and Ethanol. Rhodium used to have a great procedure, but you need a
proper distillation setup. Preparation of Ethyl bromide is a classic example of an esterification, I'm sure your school would let you make some
of it with their equipment. But it's unlikely your school would have ethyl bromide.
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Theoretic
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Try methyl mercaptane. It's officially credited with being the most malodorous compound that exists, and its LC50 is 1000 ppm. Very safe and
verrry smelly.
"Just boil some sulfur with dilute (10- 20%) NaOH solution until the solution is orange-red. You now have a solution of sodium sulfide (and
polysulfide, but that doesn't disturb)."
If one used more NaOH, then you would have no polysulfides, but only Na2S and Na2SO3 (in a ratio of 2:1). At this point you can add ethyl bromide or
chloride to have (C2H5)S (you can't use ethyl sulfate because it hydrolyses). If you want to have C2H5HS, then by slow addition of acid (with
very fast swirling, so no local overconcentration of acid exists), turn Na2S into NaHS by partial protonation of S-- (local high concentration of acid
might lead to full protonation and formation of NaHS). Then slowly evaporate away the water, carefully not to decompose the NaHS, and then reacts
ethyl sulfate/chloride/bromide with the solid. The fine smell of methyl mercaptane shall at this point greet you! 
"If you want something that is cheap and easy to prepare and stinks horrible, make diethyl sulfide."
"(C2H5)2S is a major component of the smell from your mouth when you didn't brush your teeth for several days"
I wonder what it tastes like, shall you do a taste test for all of us?
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