A moment of silence for Matt's nose.

The intro makes me want a video of Nilered’s cameraman reacting to all these chemicals 😂

_"Normally, it would be done with a mixture of tin and hydrochloric acid, but sadly, I’m not normal - and I didn’t have any tin."_

Crafts chemical weapon in public. Drops it on the ground. Refuses to elaborate.

Kinda interesting how the impetus for making this was to understand what it smells like, since all sources reported it only as "indescribable"... Only to discover that it's smell is, in fact, _indescribable._

I love how all you online chemists help each other out despite taking the micky out of each other and possibly be a bit competitive. It's so fun to watch. Cheers !

I worked with tert-butyl isocyanide in undergrad. It….has the most IMPOSSIBLE to explain smell. It was definitely unpleasant, but I’d say that thiols smell worse to me. The best description i can give for its scent is: “If you took the juice that falls out of a garbage bag, microwaved it with a rubber tire until the tire burned, and then bubbled chlorine through it.” It truly smelled awful, but in a way I truly CANNOT accurately describe.

I recognize that white box your benzene was in. Backyard science 2000 recently hooked me up with a free hotplate since mine died, some wp, and sodium borohydride. Great guy, I've got to get going making videos.

I think context has a big role in how awful something smells. I remember as a kid, sitting in class and smelling the worst fart I'd ever smelled. It turned out to be one of those glass "stink bomb" ampoules, and breaking one and smelling it again later, not having nearly the same reaction. It wouldn't be ethical, but I think the best reactions would be from randos who have no idea what is going on or where the smell came from. Anyway, the worst thing I've ever smelled, was a bucket full of fish parts and pork trimmings that a coworker had mistakenly lidded and was left in an unused building for several months. We popped the lid thinking it was a bucket of semolina and every single one of us threw up.

Normally when KZfaqrs involve their parents in stuff I find it a bit cringe, but your dad is really wholesome and it's clear that he's actually interested in this kind if stuff beyond the usual level of "supporting your kid's hobby.

NileRed: Tentatively takes small cautious sniff of nastiness, plays up reaction. LabCoatz: Huffs nastiness like a crackhead, has to downplay reaction and resist the urge to puke. Truly a trailblazer.

CaCl2 can react with amines, so thats probably why it didn’t work well to dry the aniline. Great video by the way! You should do some synthesis of perfumery chemicals for future videos. Also its good for clickbait titles “Turning lice remover into cherry flavor???” for benzyl alcohol -> benzaldehyde for example.

I love how despite being quite professional, this has a vibe of hillbilly chemistry

I just have stop for a minute to appreciate you all... The great, and often painstaking, amount of detail that is gone into with the overall descriptions of what you guys are smelling is wonderful! Y'all have been consistently amazing throughout this whole saga in this regard, and as someone who also appreciates strange odors from time to time--it's like I'm right there with ya! I'm not a chemist although I do enjoy and dabble in chemistry, nor do I have a particularly sensitive sense of smell so far as I can tell. However, I did begin to notice and pay attention to what sense I do have, quite early on my life. Particularly interesting to me, was just how influential certain odors were to me, such as my affinity for the smell of gasoline smelled as far back as I can recall. Or how some people began to smell 'attractive' before I really knew the meaning of that word as we all acquired our own, 'teen spirit' let's say. All the way to today 2-3 decades later, how I look forward to the smell of diesel exhaust or coffee in the morning. It's always been fascinating how certain odors/scents can cause such potent psychological and/or even physical responses such as my first whiff of ammonia. But I digress, That is all to say, I have paid, perhaps, more attention to smell than the average person, and as such I naturally have a reservoir of highly detailed, odd, and often unpleasant, descriptors in my vocabulary that I often use internally to qualify/identify new ones I come across. It is quite striking to me how similarly you or your father sound to my own internal chatter as you rattle off things like, 'plasticky superglue' (which is as clear to me, as if it had been written in some kind of smell dictionary), and all this has really made me feel like I was in the park right there with you guys. In conclusion, y'all are great at describing what these fascinating and niche odors smell like, and I enjoy that immensely! Thanks for listening to my TEDtalk 😛hope y'all have a good one!

I glad I found you through Nile Red, he’s great but his nose has been throughly destroyed by chemicals and I sincerely doubt his judgment on stink.

One of your best videos yet brother

Shout out to your friends for bearing with that. Also, I loved your comparison of the different isocyanides. After digging a bit, the steric hindrance seems to be the important factor for the different odor intensity of the benzylic and aliphatic isocyanides. So maybe the shorter alkyl isocyanides might be even worse.

Now you've got to do the same but with the nicest smelling chemicals you can synthesize. That would be a nice counterpoint to this saga of videos!!! Esters, long chain aldehydes, terpenes or something like that. Great videos!

Man, I am impressed with your work here. Since I work in Lab Safety professionally, I'd really like to see more eye pro, but I really appreciate you actually testing these chemicals.-

Dude that was so cool! I'm really happy the n-butylamine and ethanolamine got to be put to something really awesome. I like to see how excited you get for these compounds keep it up man another great video!

My poor roommate just received my delivery of n butyl isocyanide because I'm out of state right now. He said it was absolutely vile, made his stomach turn, and smells like "maybe overheated rusted tar aluminum". It's still in the envelope. He literally had to find a place outside to keep it

You're crazy for doing chemistry in the back of your car. People are going to think you're the next Walter White.

The way the phenyl isocyanide was being described is pretty much the exact way people describe the smell of DMT smoke, a lot of people say it's like burning plastic/rubber/garbage but with organic components to it, it's never smelled bad to me personally and I get more of a jasminey kinda fresh plastic power tool case smell from it usually when I've smelled it when someone's smoking it at a concert but for a lot of people they can't stand the smell whatsoever and this is the only thing I've ever heard the smell described in a similar way

Doing chemistry in a car scares me haha, nice vid!

Your dad's description was super solid and gave me a good idea of the smell

ive happened to have the stupid idea to make phenyl isonitrile on a tiny scale because it supposedly smells bad and yeah i can vouch it smells bad, it simply just is horrible. i agree with the descriptions you and your friends gave, burning sharp odor like plastic/burning fat and an organic smell sorta like seaweed/fish (pyridine imo), the worst part is smelling it leaves a horrific taste in your mouth. a chemist i know told me that a coworker used to work with isonitrile chemistry and the drawer they used for storage still stinks XD ive made thioacetone and yeah isonitriles are simply worse overall

You might have heard of gas mask. It is a thing that filters out various chemicals from air you breath. Could be a good idea to use while performing such syntheses ;)

Hes just collecting bad smells like infinity stones now

Entertaining video, give your old man a medal for putting up with your stinky stuff.

You are a champion of truth. Time for non lethal taste tests.

holy shit the stinky chemistry returns yet again! As always, epic video, and I can't wait to see what you make next!

WOW!!!! 1st thank you for sending me this sample, 2nd 🖕🫵 for sending me this sample! Holy Shit that was WAAAYYYY worse than the last one. Honestly I stopped by my mailbox on the way to work today, my plan was to take this sample to work and have them try it like the last one. As soon as I got it out of the mailbox (STILL SEALED in the package) I could smell the HORRIBLE 🤢🤮 burnt rubber/plastic chemical smell. THERE WAS NO WAY I was going to put it in my car let alone take it to work. So when I got off work I got it out of my mailbox, (smelled the package again) 🤢 and directly threw it away in an outside garage can. WOW, you truly have out done yourself. I really believe if someone would leave this in a building, they would evacuate it, seriously! I don’t think I will be getting any more samples from you. But, I very much enjoy your videos and hope you continue! 👍👍

I was working with isocyanides on my PhD and this is the best description of the smell I come up with: “what if the sweet smell could be bad” but this smell isn’t similar to any other group of compounds. In the synthesis of isocyanides the best method I found was dehydratation of formamides with tosyl chloride in quinoline (which kind of stinks itself), but isocyanide vacuum distilled (remember liquid nitrogen trap!) from solution is almost pure (95%, over 99.9% after additional distillation) and yield is usually over 80%. The methods that require extraction and evaporation of solvent works only on very non-volatile isocyanides, in other cases most of the product evaporates with solvents and leftover is still contaminated. Glassware after synthesis of isocyanides can be easy clean by let is sit in diluted acids, it takes usually 1-2days but isocyanide will completely hydrolysed and smell will disappeared.

Haha why would you synthesize this *in a car*?! Props to everyone involved, really entertaining stuff

Hope u know that these videos are amazing! They're edited simply, but its just all perfect. High quality and feels so genuine. I hope u never stop, ur my favorite chemistry youtuber rn! 💯 wish i could give 100 thumbs up. Greetings from Sweden

Are you in Oklahoma? That's crazy. Your budy's shirt is missing an S between the O and U on his shirt, and the color is all wrong. My hometown is just like 30 minutes east of you.

One thing that gets missed in discussions about foul chemical smells is that the worst ones don't come from isolated compounds. Decayed organic materials, autoclave stench and military malodors get a good deal of their offensiveness from the fact that they present a rich "bouquet" of smells. Likewise, pure organosulfurs are unpleasant, but they really come into their own as part of a mixture, especially since every low MW sulfur compound stinks in its own way. You haven't lived until a grad student's experiment smells and tastes like the back of your throat got sprayed with aerosolised, burning carnivore shit.

excellent narrations good editing great video

I just found your channel and think it’s one of my new favorites

*Pure distilled Genius at Display in this Video.* 🤩 👍 I Vote he gets the Chemistry Nobel Prize! 👍

Enjoyable content. It's videos like these that make me want to do an extra major in chemistry

I hate that burning plastic smell. Not plastic burning but that chemical smell that duplicates it but much worse. Burns the nostrils and makes you choke. Good job on your creations my guy. Your father’s description is so perfect.

Great work! Thanks for testing multiple chemicals in a single video. 👍

Most isocyanide chemicals smell like hot rubber combined with an acrid burning plastic like smell. Actually you can use the stirrer's magnet itself to stirr the steel wool around in the flask.

The madlad is at it again!

When you think yellow chemistry is bad. Green chemistry.....hold ma beer, son, watch this.

awesome video dude, can't wait for more of these

Man what a great patreon gift at the end

Thanks for this! I remember asking for isocyanides on your selenoacetone video. Sadly I live outside the US so can't get a sample :( Phosphines next?

Got my shipment! *Holy mother of god and all that is holy* Why did I ever think that was a good idea?! ;-) Heated it up and - INSTANT regret. My friends and I - nay - they entire neighborhood will not forget that anytime soon. lmfao

Yea, Butyl compounds tend to have that effect. Add an isocyanide to that precursor, and it's just a poor match for humans.

I've worked with these chemicals for a few months and they are, to this day, the worst things I've ever smelled. My supervisor would sometimes hold a flask under my nose as an 'analytical test' for the presence of these horrible smelling compounds. It may sound funny, but I'd rather be kicked in my nuts than smell one of those chemicals in those quantities ever again. Obviously, I quit my job there. Even when I smell the slightest whiff on the lab where I'm working now, I get traumas from isocyanides. Maybe the best description of the isocyanide smell, just like you mention in your first reactions in this video, is that you don't smell these compounds with your nose: you feel them in your nose, throat, sinuses and lungs. Thanks for sharing this video, and I'm glad you found your stench champion.... eventhough I hope there is an even worse smelling chemical waiting for you in the future :)

Found you through NileRed, and I'm sure glad to do so.

This reminded me about my one experience with DMT. DMT has an aweful taste and smell when heated. I know firsthand. Its like if you went into a bike shop and sniffed the new bike tires but combined that with tonsil stones and fish. One of the most unpleasent and nauseating odors ive encountered honestly.

Maybe try sodium dithionite someday as a reducing agent to make aniline? I haven't tried making aniline with it, as in my country you can buy aniline as an OTC reagent (and you cannot buy HNO3 and H2SO4 which makes nitrobenzene harder to obtain), but it works very well with toluidines, xylidines, and luminol.

I'm really enjoying your content... Keep it up

Great video. Im so glad I subbed a while back

Love all the OU love - makes me feel right back home

Great video! For synthesizing primary amines one might look at the Delepine reaction. Haloalkanes react with hexamine (aka urotropine) to form primary amines. Hexamine is quite easy to obtain from fuel tablets at least in Europe. Keep up the great work, I really enjoy all of your videos! :)

Very intresting. It would be also intresting to make a closed space test and maybe also make cyclohexyl isocyanide, benzyl isocyanide and ethyl isocyanoacetate (from glycine probably) 2. Phosphines would be your next boss

"Thanks man..." Oh the power of friendship..

10:47 I love how it feels like he’s listing his qualifications for a job interview.

A lot of smells have a weird perception response in the sense that low levels end up smelling good. Sort of like how skatole (like scat as in poop) smells flowery in low concentrations; to the point where it's used in some perfumes. Apparently some mercaptans have this feature as well.

Glad I finally got to see this happen

The best source of readily available tin is at a sporting goods store. They are trying to (and have in some places) remove lead from fishing, so sinkers are made of either steel or tin now. Its pretty easy to tell the two apart.

Sounds more like the effects of a bad gas, rather than a bad smell as much. The noxiousness, like something in the military in Boot Camp but i doubt it's near that noxious.

The fight over stinkiest continues! Love it! Stink on!

Orry about your sample. The video was awesome 👌

Imagine the cops rolling up on you and seeing all that glassware and equipment emitting the smell of burnt plastic and fish lol

Cannot remember what the molecular name was, but it's classed as super rotten egg gas. It's about 40 times more pungent, extraclingy and persistent. In a protest against some tollbooths on a newly built freeway, it was isolated in the lab, put into water bombs and held three times, once while pouring concrete, a second time on opening day, and third time about a week later. It has such a binding affinity that only a few molecules as a very long lasting effect! You delete the concluding by three days as they could not work, totally ruined opening day ceremony and delayed opening by three days, and then shut down the tollbooths for three days after the initial free trial period, as the cashier's could not work if exposed, the smell and memory lingered for nearly 2 days and the carrier oil allowed it to stick around until it finally vaporised its reign of terror. And being based in an oil carrier it would soak in to porous materials, and if you tried to wash it, it actually activated the active ingredient making the area highly avoidable! As a cautionary note, he not only triggered asthma but also acted like an itching powder due to the sulphur. It's long lasting effect was also due to the major compound further decaying into rotten egg gas in the smallest amount would definitely leave an area avoidable for days!

you can buy phenethylamine HCL in supplement shops - freebase it and make phenethyl isocyanide?

Most people can honestly call a smell indescribable and it's no more an exaggeration than people commonly make in casual speech. Most people don't talk about smells in a lot of detail, and lack the vocabulary when they attempt to do so. If I needed to talk about smells with precision, first I would have to smell enough things to serve as points of reference. Presumably this is what people do when they actually need to discriminate smells for a professional purpose. Such as a chemistry youtube channel :P

60% of the Time, It Works Every Time!

I absolutely applied your efforts! It would be really interesting to explain to a sheriff state trooper or park ranger what you all were doing on the back of your car. I could see some ill-informed cock is powerful enough to start arresting people for a mobile meth lab because he saw glassware and isn't informed enough to know anything about chemistry.

I think its possible that our modern environment is so full of strong smells that we're somewhat nose blind these days. I can imagine back when the worst thing people could imagine smelling was manure these would have caused vomiting and nausea and evacuation

This is great, but we need a reference that we can buy in the store: Swedish Surströmming. Please open that, and put it on the chart, so we know what you have here.

“I was only successful in reducing my yield” god that’s relatable lol

It’s 3 days after thanksgiving 2023 and I think this guy needs to smell what I’m cooking

I wonder how having the compounds in an enclosed space would change the smell intensity. You'd be able to get higher concentrations, I imagine.

I look forward to your attempt at making the Tellurium analog of Thioacetone to complete the sink family

I'm curious how an animal - like a canine - with a far more sensitive sense of smell than humans but with seemingly high tolerances to offensive odors would react to these.

My city recently had an odor blanket it that sounded oddly similar to the isocyanides, a foul mixture of burning rubber and burning plastic with an odd organic undertone. Called the fire department and they were able to get it sorted out, but never did find out what the cause was or where it came from.

Great video keep it up

Great video, so interesting

id like to see a unholy amalgam of the worst ones ^^

«its like smelling pyridine, but much worse» well, nope. Pyridine and Lawesson Reagent were the two ones that almost made me puke

Donkey's years ago I had the opportunity to smell 'skatol', (I think that's how it is spelled) . It's essence of urine, apparently used by perfumers. It was in a glass bottle inside another glass bottle and it still took five minutes of scrubbing to get the smell of piss off my fingers.

13:45 I just had this vision of 1 guy letting lose a fart and then calling over his 2 friends to smell it.

A little concerned that the opening shot has two people eye level with what looks like a boiling solution in a test tube and, despite the channel name, no PPE on one and gloves only on the other. Eye protection is worth it!

I don't understand half the words in this video. I'm here for the stink reactions.

Makes me stop and think how enormous and incredibly complicated the chemical production industry must be. This is just one chemical or rather a series of them. Think of the hundreds of thousands of different chemicals that are synthesized in commercial quantities; this is just a tiny snippet 🤯

There really is a difference in strength versus smell. The worst thing I ever smelled was some toxic mold in my air ducts that was making me wretch. Its actual smell may not have been that bad, but the sheer strength of it was enough to make me evacuate my house while it had to be cleaned. Made me want to vomit.

I got flashbacks when yout friend smelled the Tert-butly isocyanide

I did PhD work with isocyanides and interestingly my lab mates and I agree that although isocyanides smell bad it's still bearable and we all agreed amines and thiols smell infinitely worse and we often used bleach and other precautions to stop the smell.

There is something so hilariously pure about three bros sharing rank scents.

A chemistry teacher told us a story that he was on a convention and a professor showed them a purple liquid from which he puts one drop on an overhead projector and the whole room filled up with a bad stinking odor that makes every one run out. Any suggestions on this nasty stuff?

Your biggest challenge was iron, steel wool. Bechamp reduction was cool.

The fact that nitrobenzene, which smells like artificial cherry, can be used to create an awful smelling chemical makes me wonder if the n-butyl-isocyanide could be synthesized from n-butyl-acetate, which smells like artificial banana. That could be a new series of videos where pleasant smelling chemicals are altered into foul smelling ones.

“Animalistic cheese” I smell a sample of that smell and I almost died 💀

Still thinking of stepping into the uncharted smelly territory of *tellurium* my friend? 😂😂