Morgan
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Vial of palladium odor mystery
So rearranging stuff in my garage and checking on and opening a typical stainless steel food storage container with glass lid and silicone gasket, I
noticed a disagreeable odor somewhat sulfurous perhaps and I was wondering what great mystery could be causing the smell. In the container in glass
bottles and glass vials were some platinum on alumina, palladium on carbon, palladium on alumina, ruthenium oxide, platinum dioxide and a gram of
palladium. Each item was also in a plastic bag and nothing you would think could cause an odor, but I determined it was the palladium black. The tiny
amber vial came with a smart looking label and one of those plastic lids that has a hole in the center and some sort of liner. It is white on the
outside but red under the cap.
I noticed a slight gummy film on top of the cap which was odd, perhaps the lid decayed or reacted in some voodoo way with the palladium but why such a
smell for so small a vial.? A vial of Adams catalyst also had the white/red gasket material - I checked/compared thinking the red underside color
might have indicated old age or decay of some sort in the palladium vial.
It was just some stuff to experiment with when toying with making catalytic lighters fueled with methanol and "Dobereiner's Hydrogen Lamp" years ago,
and the stuff mostly sold together on eBay so I bought it.
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Morgan
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Here's a photo of the culprit on the right. Maybe the powder absorbed some odors from the air in the garage over time, either that or the plastic lid
degraded I guess.
But it has taken on a garlic or sulfur-like odor sort of.
[Edited on 14-9-2019 by Morgan]
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Sulaiman
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Out of curiosity I did a little googling on this subject ... I found nothing useful 
As none of these elements / compounds are particularly toxic, carcinogenic or mutagenic you could ;
put each sample in a new container each,
and put the vials from each in new containers,
leave for a few days/weeks/months and then smell the six samples individually.
As these are all in the PGM maybe there is some small quantity of osmium contamination ?
I have read that osmium is 'smelly' but I've never smelt it myself.
This seems a trivial problem but strangely interesting,
if you do determine what causes the smell - please update us.
CAUTION : Hobby Chemist, not Professional or even Amateur
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Morgan
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Thanks for your input.
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