Bonus: Methane doesn't have a smell (and other questions)?
Hit record. I'm trying to go eat chili with my roommates.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:Is it recording? Mhmm. I did not know. Yep. Hey.
Melissa:I'm Melissa.
Jam:And I'm Jam.
Melissa:And I'm a chemist.
Jam:And I'm not.
Melissa:And welcome to Chemistry For Your Life.
Jam:The podcast helps you understand the chemistry of your everyday life even international crisis.
Melissa:Even international. That's true. It's a national state of emergency. Mhmm. Yes.
Melissa:We're in the midst of corona this week.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:We've just had lots of major changes, but luckily, we're still here for a fun q and r bonus episode.
Jam:Yes. And maybe you've got a little bit of extra time to listen to podcasts or something. So if so, then here you go.
Melissa:Woo hoo. But we do, though, wanna encourage everyone to take precautions, wash your hands, don't buy all the toilet paper, leave some for other people.
Jam:Including us, please.
Melissa:Including us, my roommates are running out.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:So it's a little dangerous.
Jam:Yes. Do everything you can. Stay safe. Mhmm. And, because we care about you guys.
Melissa:Yeah. That's that's so true. Okay. Before we start
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:I wanna do 2 Comments. Okay. Corrections.
Jam:Corrections. So I was gonna say I was gonna say, aren't they corrections? I mean, like
Melissa:One's a correction.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So my first correction was pointed out to me It's before seminar. We have seminar every week in the chemistry department. And my friend, Tim or Timothy p, he pointed out to me something, and I don't know how I didn't know this. But he said, methane doesn't have a smell. Manure produces methane, but that's not the thing that has a smell.
Melissa:And, actually, natural gas is often engineered With sulfur compounds, to smell so that we will notice it.
Jam:That is interesting. I actually think I'd heard That's somewhere, but I don't know if I knew which things had it and which things didn't.
Melissa:I had never heard that, and I don't know how I didn't know. I mean, if I had stopped and thought, I would have realized that that is accurate. It doesn't really make sense that methane has a smell. Mhmm. But I did a quick Google check, and Google confirmed what he said to me.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:But
Melissa:the question originally asked was, are there things that smell bad that aren't sulfur compounds? And I said yes, and I gave meth methane as the example, which was wrong. So I wanna always I love Learning new things, which sometimes means admitting that you're wrong. So I wanted to come here and confess to you guys that I was wrong
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And tell you that My overall answer was still right because I think there are other things that I think smell bad that don't have sulfur in them. For example, there's a Thing I use in the lab a lot called Acetophenone. And that's just a common name for it, but it's just a carbon and carbon hydrogens and oxygen only. And it smells to me exactly like a women's public restroom. I think it smells so bad.
Melissa:Ugh. Yes. A women pub Women's public restroom at, like, a park. There's a specific gross smell to that. So that one has absolutely no sulfur in it, and it still smells bad.
Melissa:So my point remains, but I was wrong about the methane. So I wanted to come here and be be honest about that and admit when I was wrong because I think that that's really important to do.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:That's a lot of science. And the other thing I wanted to shout out, Tori m, because she has given us so many good questions. But, Tori, they're all questions that I don't actually know the answer to. You just consistently stump me, and I haven't had an abundance of time to research them yet. So thank you for sending us those questions when you wonder about them and are thinking through them.
Melissa:I just think it's so fun. She asked us a question about Cheese and a question about wine. And is she just has really great questions, but they've stumped me. So I'm gonna need some time to research them before I can make them into an
Jam:That is very much worth asking. You know? Yeah. Like, to really hold hold them, like, I don't know. And then only ask quick really killer ones.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:This will get her. That's kind of
Melissa:They have every single she's, I think, submitted 4 or 5 in every single one, I think. Gosh. I don't know. That's a great question.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:So Just wanted to shout out Tori m for that.
Jam:Okay. Are we ready for the question portion of the question and response?
Melissa:Yes. I am.
Jam:Okay. So this question is In regard to the Bleach episode
Melissa:Oh, I did want to include so when we edit there are episodes, we try to keep them to a reasonable amount of time. Yeah. And we had so much fun talking about some stuff from the bleach episode that it was very long, about 10 minutes longer than the final product. Yeah. But we cut some really interesting about the way we use the same detection for color in the lab as we do in our eyes is sort of We've computerized that.
Melissa:Uh-huh. And there's a part that I really wanted to save and include. So we're gonna go ahead and play that clip for you so you can hear what we missed. And we use this technology in the lab. I worked on photosynthesis, artificial photosynthesis, and we made highly, It's called conjugated.
Melissa:So very high numbers of alternating double bonds. It was that beautiful teal colored Liquid that I put on Yeah.
Jam:Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa:The Instagram before, that has a lot of alternating double bonds in the structure. So it absorbs light And it would be the complementary color. So I guess the red orange Uh-huh. Area, and then it reflects back that beautiful teal color.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And to determine at exact what exactly what wavelength that absorbed light Uh-huh. We had an instrument that Put light into it. You have a little sample size for the molecule itself, and then there's a detector that feeds information back to the computer. So it almost works like a computerized version of our experience
Jam:Oh, interesting.
Melissa:In an isolated box, so there's no interference. And it can tell you exactly What energy the the electrons are exciting to and absorbing?
Jam:Wow. Wow.
Melissa:So we use that technology a lot.
Jam:Yeah. That's a crazy thing that, exists. Like, I just don't even know the 1st place to start in terms of being able to Actually measure light in a way that's not just, like, subjective. Like, we obviously can say, like, oh, that looks orange Or whatever.
Melissa:Right.
Jam:But how do you then get a computer to do it? Man, that's crazy to think about.
Melissa:Right. Inherently, one of the articles I read Said that inherently color is very subjective because the light can change. Mhmm. Our eyes can maybe interpret things differently. The molecules In different environments, like warmer or cooler can change.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:So color can really change a lot. But When you hold those factors steady in an instrument, it actually shines light from the entire visible spectrum. That one went all the way into the UV spectrum, and so it would control the wavelength at which it was shining light. And then That light would pass through the sample.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:And the detector on the other side would determine which wavelengths were getting through and which wavelengths weren't getting through. And the ones that weren't coming through the sample were being absorbed by the sample.
Jam:I just realized I'm kinda dumb.
Melissa:Why?
Jam:Well, I just said thing about, like, Computers being able to see light and stuff like that?
Melissa:Right.
Jam:That's exactly how we tested people's water at the pool store. It's based on light.
Melissa:You did an absorption?
Jam:Yeah. We did we had these vials that had chemical, like, specific powders in them that should react with the people's pool water In different ways to test different parameters of their water. So pH would be 1. Right. And then just how much chlorine they have in there already that's, like, still there that didn't didn't get, like, you know, Evaporated by the sun or whatever.
Melissa:Right.
Jam:And how much has changed based on, like, it raining or whatever. We had, like, 5 and how much acid? All these things. Like 5 or 6 files, and then you put them in the thing you shut. And you would run it, and it would shine light in each one
Melissa:Right.
Jam:And determine it, Like, it's leveled based on the light. So I've done that and didn't even think about it, and I just said, like, oh, wow. Wouldn't it be cool computers could do that?
Melissa:But computers can do that.
Jam:And I did it. I didn't know how it worked exactly, but I knew that I knew that much.
Melissa:So, actually and I decided to not get into this because I thought it was gonna be boring. But since you said that, I'll tell you. Actually, you can use the absorption of, the how much light is absorbed to determine the concentration of something. Okay. So there are some limitations to it, but if you have a higher concentration of a molecule that absorbs at x Uh-huh.
Melissa:Nanometers versus a lower that absorbs the x nanometers, the computer can shine the light, and you can plug all this information in to find out what the concentration of your solution is.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:So that's probably exactly what you were doing in
Jam:the pool store. It must be
Melissa:And you put it in the thing and close the box. It was an isolated area Mhmm. Where you had the light And the molecules in the detector. Uh-huh. Yeah.
Jam:And we'd print off a sheet that was like, hey. Here's the results. And then we'd go from that basically to diagnose their pool. But we had to have the computer obviously do that first part because it would just be guessing if we just did on our human
Melissa:Right.
Jam:You know?
Melissa:Our computers are not standardized in our brains. Our our brain computers are not standardized the way we force computer technology to be standardized. So Your eyeballs would not be an effective detector to send information back to your brain in an objective manner.
Jam:Yeah. Gosh. That's crazy.
Melissa:That's a really cool tidbit. I appreciate you sharing that.
Jam:Just, like, suddenly rushed back into my head. We don't have to put this in, but, like, all you know how that happens where, like, suddenly all these memories come back? Okay. We are back in the present, which will
Melissa:a little fun.
Jam:Which will very, very quickly be the past. So the question from the bleach episode that we have is from Steven h. And he asked, Is the oxygenation reaction from bleach reversible? I e, is the color hiding in there in such a way that it could be brought back? Like, say, in a hoodie of some kind that you get a little bit of bleach
Melissa:on it. That's an interesting question. So My answer is chemist organic chemists especially are pretty powerful. They can do a lot with things. I'm not sure if that reaction specifically would be easily reversed to exactly what it started out as Mhmm.
Melissa:In the context of it being in your hoodie. But if I had that molecule in the lab and I had oxygenated it and then I wanted to reverse that.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:I would have tools to be able to do that. But when it's already been processed, Purified, put on, and dyed into your cloth material. I think it's gonna be a lot more challenging to reasonably carry out the reverse reaction.
Jam:I see what you're saying. Yeah.
Melissa:And it would not even necessarily be like, so we go from a to b, and then we can use a reverse Reaction to go from b back to a, we might have to do several steps to get all the way back to what it started out as.
Jam:Like, from b all the way through z and then back to
Melissa:Sometimes. Organic chemistry is very weird sometimes. So so I don't know the exact details of that specific reaction, how you could reverse it or what you could do to make the color come back. I'd be surprised if it was impossible, but I would also be surprised if it was very simple. Yeah.
Melissa:I I imagine that process being a multistep reaction sequence to get back to where you started.
Jam:Mhmm. Wow.
Melissa:But I didn't look into it specifically.
Jam:Gotcha. That's crazy. That'd be way cool if it was that simple.
Melissa:Yeah. Some reactions are, just not this one.
Jam:This, next question is also about bleach. It's from Alice c
Melissa:That's my mom. It's from my mom. Exciting.
Jam:I wonder what the c stands for. Cannoli. I have heard that soap and bleach can cancel each other out. Is that true?
Melissa:I think she means laundry soap. Like, laundry detergent and bleach can safely be mixed. They've been chemically formulated to mix Okay. And not produce any dangerous byproducts.
Jam:Good.
Melissa:But I would not be shocked based on the chemical structure of bleach and the chemical structure of most soaps and detergents if the 2 interacted with each other
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:In a way that somehow made both of them less effective.
Jam:Interesting.
Melissa:So you can mix them, and it's safe and fine.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:But I think you would probably it'd be more effective if you soaked it in bleach first
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Then did a rinse cycle and did soap. Interesting. Would be my suspicion because I suspect that the 2 could interact and change the chemical nature and make both of them less effective.
Jam:Interesting. Yeah. I've usually done both bleach and soap, because I think of bleach is, like, the main thing about it is just for Making whites whiter and brighter. Mhmm.
Melissa:Yeah. And then
Jam:the soap is like, oh, gotta make it clean too. I've I've never thought about that they might, like, Make each other a little bit less good at those things.
Melissa:I think that's a real possibility. Although I have not admittedly looked into Mhmm. Laundry detergent chemistry.
Jam:Can bleach on its own clean a little bit? Like, if I just did bleach, or is that not enough? I've always felt like it wouldn't, but never really looked at it.
Melissa:Yes. Actually, it can. So bleach breaks up those molecules, the conjugation, and color like we talked out.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And it can also break up those molecules in dirt. Mhmm. And that will make it easier for them to be lifted and washed away, but also adding oxygens or chlorine
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Will make it more willing to interact with the water, and that can also help things wash away too. So Bleach can take away color, but it can also help take away dirt.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:I think things that are washed with dish soap smell better. Personally Yeah. I said dish soap, but I meant laundry detergent. Smell better. Uh-huh.
Melissa:I don't wash my clothes with dish soap. Listeners at home, my clothes smell good, like, Tied and wait. Is it tied? Yeah. Mhmm.
Melissa:Tied and fluffy clean laundry. Not like dish soap.
Jam:Right. Uh-huh.
Melissa:No. It's true. So I personally think you can always hit it with A little bit of laundry detergent to make it smell better, but I don't know for sure.
Jam:Order some mints in there. Anyway, moving on. Yikes. These next few questions are from the hand warmer episode, And they are all from Steven h.
Melissa:So Steven h asks really good questions
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:That are easy to answer and very relevant. That's why he gets a lot. Mhmm.
Jam:Well done, Steven. No. They are really good. I don't think we've ever had not going from him. He he's even done he's even been one of the ones to do some non chemistry questions Mhmm.
Jam:Which have been good.
Melissa:So Yes.
Jam:His first one is this. Is all crystal formation exothermic?
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:Holy.
Melissa:So It's hard for people to think about that, but something going from a liquid to a solid is letting off heat.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:So going from a less ordered state to a more ordered state is always exothermic.
Jam:That makes sense. And you did say that the other day. I just yeah. Kinda cool how he asked it, and I did not, for some reason, didn't expect it to be. Yes.
Melissa:Mhmm. And, also, that means that And he brought this up to me in person that making snowflakes is exothermic.
Jam:How?
Melissa:Because it's going from a liquid to a solid.
Jam:Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's trippy.
Melissa:It is kind of trippy.
Jam:His next one is this. If the supersaturated fluid In these reusable handwash we we talked about. If you missed the episode, go back and check it out. If the supersaturated fluid wasn't sealed in a pouch, Would it form crystals in the same way? I e, is there anything special about being in a sealed container?
Melissa:No. I don't think so because we've seen That happened I mean, I talked about when you scratch the side of a glass, the crystals form immediately, stuff like that. So I think the answer to that question is no. The sealed patch, I don't think matters. In this case, I think it keeps it from the liquid evaporating when you boil it.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:And it keeps it in a pouch you can carry with you, but it's not key, I don't think, to the crystallization process, Only key to the function of the hand warmers.
Jam:Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Steven's 3rd and final question about Hand warmers is this.
Melissa:Also, Steven came up with the idea for that episode, so I think he really was invested.
Jam:Yeah. Really. Truly. I tried boiling one of our hand warmers to reset it, and it seemed to turn back to liquid, but there was still some crystals in there once it cooled. Does this mean I didn't boil hot enough, long enough, or both?
Melissa:Okay, Steven. The same thing happened to me. I posted an Instagram story where I was reboiling those 2 hand warmers, and one of them was still liquid when it cooled down, and the other 1 recrystallized a little bit. So I took it back and put it back in the boil and boiled a little bit longer and brought it back out, and it stayed liquid that time.
Jam:Got it.
Melissa:And I think We can't really say for sure. I think boiling it longer will solve the problem. Just put it back in there and boil it more.
Jam:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Melissa:Could be because there's different color dyes in them. It could be because there's slightly different amounts of liquid. It's not standardized. I don't really know Mhmm. Exactly why.
Melissa:I put them in together at the same time. Mhmm. They boiled together for the same amount of time, and 1 was liquid and 1 went back to the crystal form. Mhmm. So it just was Something about the way it happened, it was able to seed and sort of form the crystals as it settled back out and cooled down.
Melissa:Boil it a little bit longer, and it should go more into solution and fix the problem. Fantastic. Happen to me too.
Jam:Yeah. That's interesting. So was it Well, I guess it was hot because it was just in hot water. So you can
Melissa:cooled back down and crystallize. You can't tell until it's cool if it actually worked.
Jam:Got it. Okay.
Melissa:Like, if I boil something and it comes back down to room temperature, it could crash out. We call it crashing out of solution. Oh. When because it's not soluble in that liquid at room temperature.
Jam:Got
Melissa:it. Unless you form a super saturated solution that's not disturbed or all that stuff to stay liquid.
Jam:Mhmm. Mhmm. Okay. Here is Our last question. This question came from Instagram, and it's not regarding any specific episode.
Jam:It's from Jonathan the White Hi, Insta. That's his username. Is using a steam mop to clean your floors as effective as using traditional detergents?
Melissa:Okay, Jonathan. I have a lot of thoughts about this.
Jam:Oh, interesting.
Melissa:Detergents are soap. We've talked about that In the 1st episode about how it forms those cells sort of circles all around the dirt and helps it to be Comfortable with water and wash away.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:So that's important, and it is effective. However, steam can be more disinfecting, and it can also break things up like dirt on your ground that's just stuck on because it's hot.
Jam:Oh, yeah.
Melissa:So I think that both are really gonna be good for different reasons.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Detergent is gonna help you clean the greasy spots a lot more effectively than just water would.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And steaming mop will disinfect and Break some stuff that's stuck on with heat and water. Yeah. So I think you're probably good either way. It depends on Maybe which room in the house you're using and what you're trying to accomplish.
Jam:Interesting. I don't think I realized that Steaming could also disinfect. I don't know why I didn't think about that.
Melissa:I just thought, like because it's hot.
Jam:Yeah. I just thought, like, it could definitely get the dirt off. It's kinda what I would think. But yeah. Interesting.
Jam:Thanks, Jonathan.
Melissa:Yeah. That was a good question, Jonathan.
Jam:Also, I'm guessing, Jonathan, that from your your name that you are Lord of the Rings fan.
Melissa:Or a wizard. Maybe he's a wizard.
Jam:Yeah. Or both. Either way.
Melissa:Well, thanks guys, for all your questions, this is fun. I always love these q and r episodes. Yeah. They're some of my favorite things we do. So stay safe out there.
Melissa:Listen to all your CDC recommendations, And keep yourself and the people around you healthy.
Jam:Absolutely. And keep the questions coming.
Melissa:Also, I wanna say we've mentioned a few times, And we also talk about at the end of every episode that we have a. And we do that because this podcast, even though we've started working on getting some sponsors, Still cost Gemini money to make the show.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:And as we are nearing a threshold, we are so thankful. We've had so many listeners. We're getting close to 10,000 downloads every single month.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:When we hit that barrier, it's going to get much more expensive to host our show.
Jam:Yeah. Basically, the way our host works this might be more than you care to know about. But where our host works is about how much bandwidth we take up from from them. Because they're the ones, You know, managing and, like, having the infrastructure in place to Right. Be able to deliver this data to this many people.
Jam:Mhmm. So once we cross that 10,000 download threshold, we go up to another tier, basically, Which normally
Melissa:a lot more expensive.
Jam:Right. Right. Right. So we're still that's still a a thing that we're gonna be talking about about our and A really big reason to try to get sponsors so that we can keep the show coming to you and keep it free and all things that that come with the podcast and make Podcasts are great. That's why we love them too.
Jam:So
Melissa:Right. And we're committed to keeping our show open access. We don't wanna put up a barrier or a paywall or content that's behind Yeah. Something like a Patreon. We want this any listener who wants to listen to be able to do so.
Jam:Yeah. Absolutely. And so since we updated you guys last, Joseph s has donated a few coffees to our Ko fi. So we just wanted to shout him out. Joseph, thanks so much For listening Yes.
Melissa:Thank you.
Jam:And for being generous and and helping keep our show going. We appreciate it.
Melissa:And please consider doing the same and helping us to keep the show coming to you guys.
Jam:It's not usually fun to, like, go into the details of this kind of stuff and talk about, you know, what is required to keep the show going and that things cost money, all that stuff. It's obviously not the fun part, but we just wanted to be transparent with you guys and and let y'all know. We're we talk about our lives. We talk about science. We talk about everything.
Jam:And so it's also important to talk about, what kinda goes on behind the scenes a little bit here and there, and let you guys know how we can keep the show going into the future. So that's why we went into it.
Melissa:But without you, we wouldn't have a show, and we're so thankful that you guys have been so excited and are sharing. We're so happy that we're facing this threshold of getting to 10,000 downloads a month.
Jam:Yeah. It's a good problem to have.
Melissa:It is. And I say every day, we're Reaching our sci comm dreams. I'm living the dreams I imagined for my science communication goal. So Yeah. For me, it's absolutely worth every minute of doing this, and I'm so excited to have so many listeners who are engaged and communicative.
Melissa:It just means the world
Jam:to me. Mhmm.
Melissa:So thank you guys so much. This episode of Chemistry of Your Life was created by Melissa Collini and Jim Robinson, and we'd like to give a special thanks to Robinson who reviewed this episode.
