Re: So, does ozone have an odor or not?

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Jim Lux" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net> 

Nitrogen forms lots of different oxides, of various properties, etc.

Nitrous Oxide (N2O) is the racing oxidizer and anesthetic, and yes, it
certainly is odorless and sort of non-toxic. (Although one could argue that
anything that makes you unconscious is toxic)

Nitric Oxide (NO) is yet another form - this is the form that's in heart
medicine (Nitroglycerin, e.g.)
Nitrogen dioxide NO2 (and a very similar form Nitrogen tetroxide N2O4) are
the characteristic brownish red, pungent odor stuff you get from Nitric acid
(HNO3)




----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Thursday, December 25, 2003 7:24 PM
Subject: So, does ozone have an odor or not?


 > Original poster: DRIEBEN-at-midsouth.rr-dot-com
 >
 > Hi all,
 >
 > I always thought that O3 had a sharp, almost "sweet" odor to it. I assumed
 > that
 > this sweet odor that always showed up just about as soon as I turned on
any
 > of my lower powered NST coils was ozone. Now we seem to have controversial
 > ideas as to whether the odor that we smell when playing with our wonderful
 > spark throwers is ozone or nitrogen oxides (NO).
 >
 > It was mentioned by someone that the higher powered coils don't produce
 > near as much ozone (or whatever produces that sharp sweet smell) as do the
 > smaller ones and I, for one, have indeed noticed this effect. I think that
 > it was Bert Hickman who stated that the higher powered coils are better at
 > producing the NO because it takes more energy (heat) to produce NO but
takes
 > less to produce O3 from O2. This would seem to lend credence to the "ozone
 > has a smell" school of thought, IMHO. Also, Adam (Yurtle Turtle) Menchey
 > stated that they produce O3 where he works from pure O2 and that the O3
 > they produce does indeed have this sharp odor. BTW, I've noticed the
 > "odor factor" is very low when operating a high powered (pig) coil and
 > I can run it in a poorly ventilated room  for several minutes at a time
 > w/out any noticable adverse resperatory effects (or odor). OTH, the strong
 > odor quickly becomes overpowering when operating a small NST coil in the
same
 > poorly ventilated room and if I don't cease the coil operation and get
 > to fresh air pretty quickly, I will suffer asthma-like resperatory pro-
 > blems that will take up to an hour to clear up once they're initiated,
 > even after moving to fresh air. It's quite apparent that this gas could
 > reach suffocating proportions in a fairly quick order, if one was not
 > careful!
 >
 > So, is it really O3 (ozone) that we're smelling or is it NO(). BTW,
 > if I'm not mistaken, nitrous oxide, that is used as an anasthetic and
 > as an aspiration additive for internal combustion gaslonie engines'
 > air intake manifolds to greatly increase the fuel consumptiom po-
 > tential and therefore, greatly increase the output horsepower, is odor-
 > less. I'm not sure if this nitrous oxide is the same NO compound(s)
 > that our sprking TCs are producing, but it is a thought.
 >
 > It seems to me that it is the ozone that we're smelling, not the NO.
 > BTW, does NO have the same detrimental effects to health at such low
 > concentrations as does ozone? Like I said, doctors and dentists often
 > deliberately make us breath nitorus oxide (some call it laughing gas)
 > to put us out so they can operate on us w/out us feeling the pain.
 > This form of NO must not be very toxic at all or it certainly couldn't
 > be used so freely as an anesthetic. Maybe some of the resident chemistry
 > majors could comment further on this subject?
 >
 > David Rieben
 >
 > ----- Original Message -----
 > From: Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
 > Date: Thursday, December 25, 2003 10:06 am
 > Subject: Re: new single 833A VTTC
 >
 >  > Original poster: Ed Phillips <evp-at-pacbell-dot-net>
 >  >
 >  > "Original poster: "Jim Mitchell" <electrontube-at-sbcglobal-dot-net>
 >  >
 >  > I posted a description of ozone from a dictionary,  and it says
 >  > clearlythat
 >  > ozone has a distinc smell, and it is even named for its smell, and
 >  > it is
 >  > a
 >  > common misconception when ozone is mistaken for various nitrous
 >  > oxides.
 >  > "
 >  >
 >  > Or the reverse.  In the case of coiler's, I think the smell
 >  > attributedto ozone is often that of the nitrogen oxides.  To me
 >  > ozone has a
 >  > different, somewhat "warm" small.
 >  >
 >  > Ed
 >  >
 >  >
 >  >
 >
 >