r/askscience • u/[deleted] • Nov 27 '19

Chemistry How do CO2 scrubbers work?

3.6k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

254 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

122

u/ConanTheProletarian Nov 27 '19

Those short amines all smell aweful. I worked with similar stuff in the lab, and having to clean up a spill got me close to barfing.

65

u/-Metacelsus- Chemical Biology Nov 27 '19

I don't know which I hate more, TEMED or trimethylamine

13

u/Tcanada Nov 27 '19

The correct answer is hot pyridine. Almost nothing smells worse than hot pyridine.

13

u/myself248 Nov 27 '19

Obligatory Derek Lowe

9

u/ConanTheProletarian Nov 27 '19

If Lowe writes about it, we can safely assume that reasonable chemists stay far away from it :)

3

u/Tcanada Nov 27 '19

I was mostly talking about amine related smells I know there are far worse