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

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

Original poster: sundog <sundog-at-timeship-dot-net> 

At 10:24 PM 12/25/2003, you wrote:

Hi All,

   Ozone has a sweet, pungent odor.  It's highly corrosive, and your 
exposure to it occurs before you even can smell it.

   Make no bones about it.  Ozone is *bad* for you.   It breaks down 
quickly, but can reach mind-numbing (literally) concentrations from TC 
production in very short times.  Typical overexposure symptoms include 
headache, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, etc.  Ozone is very tough on your 
lungs, and in general, bad for you.

  Yet many, *many* places sell "Air purifiers" that use ozone production to 
scrub the air clean (attract particles with electrostatic fields and 
produces ozone) and they're marketed as "safe".  Lots of people associate 
the smell of ozone with "clean air", because it has a pleasant smell to 
lots of people, in low concentrations.

   From www.msds-dot-org search for "ozone"

http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemicals/chem_profiles/ozone/basic_ozo.html
http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemicals/chem_profiles/ozone/health_ozo.html
http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemicals/chem_profiles/ozone/working_ozo.html

Its CAS Registry Number is 10028-15-6.

Basically, it's dangerous.  Very dangerous.  It's *really* bad for 
you.  The above links should help convince people to ventilate their work 
area and make sure they don't let it build up.  It's just a serious risk as 
the HV we all play with.

  Hope it helps!
Shad H



>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

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Shad (Sundog)
G-5 #1373
The Geek Group www.thegeekgroup-dot-org
"Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?"
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