Richard,

You identified the major mechanical issues leading to lab smells (hoods, poor handing, spills, storage cabinets), so you can consider adding in some chemistry. You mention "Clean off beakers, glassware, and any equipment used to handle odorous materials immediately" but here again there is no mention of chemistry or how to clean.

Yes, some amines and aldehydes can smell as you indicate, but three major culprits for lab smells are thiols, sulfides, and disulfides. Another uncommon but really nasty class is isonitriles.

So how does one address these odiferous compounds? With chemistry! A major point is that while thiols, sulfides, and disulfides smell really bad (as long as they are low enough molecular weight to be volatile) we can note that sulfoxides, sulfones, and sulfonic acids have limited smells. So an important method to quench thiols, sulfides, and disulfides (in bulk or merely cleaning glassware) is oxidation! This is easily done with Clorox bleach. Bleach will even oxidize many smelly amines. (And the dilute aqueous basic conditions will hydrolyze any hazardous chloramines.)

Even if all operations are carefully performed in a hood, researchers also need to be trained to capture and quench odiferous compounds that might be reaction byproducts such as thiols and hydrogen sulfide. If they merely go up the hood, the neighbors will not be happy! So again use bleach.

There might be circumstances where dilute hydrogen peroxide is preferred, but Chlorox bleach is really cheap.

Best,

Craig

Craig A. Merlic

Some of the members may be interested in my latest article.

"My Laboratory Smells!": Addressing Odors in the Laboratory, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-laboratory-smells-addressing-odors-richard-palluzi

Thank you

Richard Palluzi

BE(ChE), ME(ChE), PE, CSP,FAIChE

Pilot plant and laboratory consulting, safety, design, reviews, and training

www.linkedin.com/in/richardppalluzillc/

www.pilotplants.us

Richard P Palluzi LLC

72 Summit Drive

Basking Ridge, NJ 07920

rpalluzi**At_Symbol_Here**verizon.net

908-285-3782

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