Propane tank smell

Roosko said:
I ate a lot of beans back in those days and pooted into lots of gas bottles.........:D

Now I just poot when I want to............ Folks say......"Do you smell gas?"........:D
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It must'a been fun riding behind you down the road, Robert! ;) Had a friend that used to find that hilarious. Pull up to stop sign and he'd turn and look at ya with that silly grin, knowing you had to ride through that foul cloud! . I was there when he was off in one corner of a banquet hall and suddenly we hear Andrea go "KEITH ALLEN" and it was like the sea parting as people fled that room and Keith just sat there at the epicenter with that grin, smoking that 52-ring stogie, so very proud of himself. He called it "dropping a snake." :)
 
Several years back there was a big "gas leak" scare at a housing development in Chesapeake,VA. The smell of gas was so overpowering that they called in all the fire dept. The problem was found to be a nearby gas pipeline.The mercaptan is injected (a drop at a time ) into the gas as it comes into the city. The worker servicing the mercaptan tank had let less than an ounce spill.The stench was overpowering for days. They finally neutralized it by spraying the entire tank area with some chemical neutralizer. It was pointed out that if the entire tank of mercaptan (I think it was less than 100 gallons) had spilled,they would have to evacuated several square miles.

Fitzo, I had a chlorine nightmare working with P3Cl5.Scary stuff
But,the worst smell disaster was when a fellow bringing in supplies to the lab dropped a gallon bottle of Butyric Acid. Now that was a smell to remember. We all went home and showered twice that day.I heard the guy who dropped it had to burn his clothes and shoes.
Stacy
 
Roosko said:
I sure am glad that they invented mercaptan............ what a relief.... One of my earlier jobs was to eat lots of beans and "poot" into those gas bottles in order for folks to be able to smell a leak.

I ate a lot of beans back in those days and pooted into lots of gas bottles.........:D

Now I just poot when I want to............ Folks say......"Do you smell gas?"........:D
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Hey Big Boy, I knew there was something we both had in common. Funny how the sense of smell can trigger old memorries. If it wasn't for the ability to poot my life wouldn't have been as fun or interesting. Besides almost getting thrown out of school in the 5th grade and then in high school pooten in the gas tank of a "47" Ford Woody was enough to get it started when the gas guage said empty. Just goes to show those old flat head V-8's could run on anything. While in Nam I got tagged with the nickname "Frog". It didn't matter what flavor the "C" rations came in since they all had the same effect.
 
bladsmth said:
Fitzo, I had a chlorine nightmare working with P3Cl5.Scary stuff
But,the worst smell disaster was when a fellow bringing in supplies to the lab dropped a gallon bottle of Butyric Acid. Now that was a smell to remember. We all went home and showered twice that day.I heard the guy who dropped it had to burn his clothes and shoes.
Stacy
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Ah, Phos pentachloride....mildly reactive, eh? LOL Nasty crap. Keep the solvents dry... Nothing like a good whiff of chlorine or offgassed HCl to clear the sinuses while it fries 'em. :(

I hate the stench of butyric acid. They ran a process a couple weeks each year out somewhere in the chem plant that left a faintly wafting stench in the air constantly. And I mean constantly.

Have you ever driven through Kingsport when Kodak was making propionic acid? Smells like you're inside the funkiest shoes ever. :barf:

Twice in my years at work there were significant spills of nasty crap that hit a plantwide alarm. One was thionyl chloride and the worse one was a cloud of phosgene that put 17 people in the hospital and "rusted" the metal on the buildings in it's path. Scary.

I heard the alarm code for the building next door to mine one time and looked out to see people fleeing in front of a cloud of the prettiest orange vapor..... turned out an operator had missed a valve interconnect and pumped con nitric into a tank of ethyl acetate. Fortunately it wasn't acetone. Sure was a nice shade of orange. :eek:

Mix in the smell of fermentation from the south end of the plant with the odors of 100 different syntheses going on in the north end and there was an interesting everchanging melange of odour daily. Eau de chemie! It got to where you could tell what they were making during different times of the year. "Ah, they must be gearing up for the xxxxxxx campaign. That's the acid chloride stink."

Chemistry can be a lot of fun! Did I mention I hate butyric acid! :D
 
I heard that IG uses mercaptan as a cologne because it's actually an improvement. It may be the only substance that can mask the HT'ing relish fumes that emanate from his pores.:eek:
 
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