Would it be possible to capture an atmosphere fully, comprising all the chemical compounds?

[melanin]

Hello there.
I've been doing a fair amount of research and the only thing which comes close is a particle detector. These however tend to focus on the toxic particles only, leaving out a lot of content.

• What would be required to capture a 'full' data set of an atmosphere?

I'm asking this question in relation to an olfactory project, the subject of scent, about whether it would be theoretically possible to capture a certain atmosphere for the purpose of cloning it.

If this is the wrong place to ask, please direct me, thank you, I wasn't sure.

[exchemist]

2 hours ago, melanin said:

Hello there.
I've been doing a fair amount of research and the only thing which comes close is a particle detector. These however tend to focus on the toxic particles only, leaving out a lot of content.

• What would be required to capture a 'full' data set of an atmosphere?

I'm asking this question in relation to an olfactory project, the subject of scent, about whether it would be theoretically possible to capture a certain atmosphere for the purpose of cloning it.

If this is the wrong place to ask, please direct me, thank you, I wasn't sure.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by capturing. Do you mean a complete chemical analysis of a sample of air? The issue with that will be down to what threshold of detection, because there will be traces of all sorts of things at very low concentrations. The other issue is you need to have some idea of what molecules you are looking for in order to pick the best analytical method to use. If this is a smell project I imagine you won’t be interested in the major gases, but more in organic compounds , and possibly at the ppm level. Is that right, or are you thinking of inorganic components that the human nose detects, e.g SO2, H2S, etc?

[StringJunky]

Isn't it a mass spectrometer what's needed?

[exchemist]

8 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Isn't it a mass spectrometer what's needed?

Yes, presumably GC-MS.

[studiot]

20 hours ago, melanin said:

about whether it would be theoretically possible to capture a certain atmosphere for the purpose of cloning it.

 

How can you reassure us we are not helping to bust a patent or copyright ?

[melanin]

This is wonderful information, guys, thank you and pardon my uninformed knowledge of chemistry, I didn't know what to search for! I understand this is an experimental question and I appreciate the time.

 

22 hours ago, exchemist said:

I’m not quite sure what you mean by capturing. Do you mean a complete chemical analysis of a sample of air? The issue with that will be down to what threshold of detection, because there will be traces of all sorts of things at very low concentrations. The other issue is you need to have some idea of what molecules you are looking for in order to pick the best analytical method to use. If this is a smell project I imagine you won’t be interested in the major gases, but more in organic compounds , and possibly at the ppm level. Is that right, or are you thinking of inorganic components that the human nose detects, e.g SO2, H2S, etc?

Yes, a complete chemical analysis of a sample of air would be a very precise term for it. I imagine what I'm looking for would be gases exclusively, indeed. A sample of air in a moment in time. Ideally, I imagine the fullest spectrum possible with a focus on organic particles. I still need to do a lot of research into the human sense of smell, but as I understand it we are able to sense quite a lot of different chemicals, including non-organic particles, so these would be relevant as well.

I've been looking into the concept of the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer (GC-MS) and this appears to come very close to what I had in mind. I've got the impression that these tend to be mostly focused on certain chemicals as opposed to a fuller spectrum, so perhaps what I'm looking for could be a more 'neutral', specialised GC-MS? At the moment I'm just wondering what is possible to achieve and how far away it lies.

 

5 hours ago, studiot said:

 

How can you reassure us we are not helping to bust a patent or copyright ?

Frankly, I don't believe I can assure you. However, to provide a bit of insight, I'm a fine arts student and this subject is a part of an experimental project. Atm it is only research.

[studiot]

49 minutes ago, melanin said:

This is wonderful information, guys, thank you and pardon my uninformed knowledge of chemistry, I didn't know what to search for! I understand this is an experimental question and I appreciate the time.

 

Frankly, I don't believe I can assure you. However, to provide a bit of insight, I'm a fine arts student and this subject is a part of an experimental project. Atm it is only research.

 

 

So why would you want to 'clone' it ?

I hope you realise that clone is the wrong word.
It is a biological term involving the use of biological processes.

The chemical term is synthesise, which involve chemical processes.

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, melanin said:

This is wonderful information, guys, thank you and pardon my uninformed knowledge of chemistry, I didn't know what to search for! I understand this is an experimental question and I appreciate the time.

 

Yes, a complete chemical analysis of a sample of air would be a very precise term for it. I imagine what I'm looking for would be gases exclusively, indeed. A sample of air in a moment in time. Ideally, I imagine the fullest spectrum possible with a focus on organic particles. I still need to do a lot of research into the human sense of smell, but as I understand it we are able to sense quite a lot of different chemicals, including non-organic particles, so these would be relevant as well.

I've been looking into the concept of the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer (GC-MS) and this appears to come very close to what I had in mind. I've got the impression that these tend to be mostly focused on certain chemicals as opposed to a fuller spectrum, so perhaps what I'm looking for could be a more 'neutral', specialised GC-MS? At the moment I'm just wondering what is possible to achieve and how far away it lies.

 

Frankly, I don't believe I can assure you. However, to provide a bit of insight, I'm a fine arts student and this subject is a part of an experimental project. Atm it is only research.

If you are a fine art student at a university, perhaps you can get in touch with someone in the chemistry department to help you further.  

Most things that the human nose reacts to are organic compounds that are not themselves gases but whose vapour, at low concentration, is detected by the olfactory system. But it's a very complex business.  One of the chemists I studied with at university went into the wine trade and tried to analyse what gives wines their individual flavour. It's just about a lifetime project. The smell of roast chicken probably involves hundreds of compounds. Or, if you are interested in something more poetic, like the smell of a wet city street after rain, I have no idea what you would be looking for or at what concentration levels. But it sounds rather fun to try.

 

[John Cuthber]

The smell of petrichor is largely this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosmin

 

 

The first big problem is that there are something like a billion known chemicals, and we can't look for all of them in one sample.

If we did then the analysis report would be rather unmanageable; a billion lines most of which said "not detected". I think that's something like a thousand big thick books

(and it wouldn't be cheap)

The other big problem is that, for some materials, you can smell them at concentrations  which are below the limit of detection by GC/MS (or most other techniques).

 

1 hour ago, studiot said:

 

 

So why would you want to 'clone' it ?

I hope you realise that clone is the wrong word.
It is a biological term involving the use of biological processes.

The chemical term is synthesise, which involve chemical processes.

Cloning would be a perfectly acceptable term if I was, for example, seeking to copy a trademarked perfume.
It's also a term commonly used for copying a computer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clone_(computing)

And the word is used for credit card fraud involving a copied card.

[StringJunky]

8 hours ago, studiot said:

 

How can you reassure us we are not helping to bust a patent or copyright ?

What is the chance of that, and is it our place to police it?

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

Or, if you are interested in something more poetic, like the smell of a wet city street after rain, I have no idea what you would be looking for or at what concentration levels.

1 part mud, 2 parts plant oils, 6 parts earthworm.

[melanin]

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

Or, if you are interested in something more poetic, like the smell of a wet city street after rain, I have no idea what you would be looking for or at what concentration levels. But it sounds rather fun to try.

That precise situation was what intially sparked this thought. Thank you for the insight, it brings me some idea of what to expect and some direction. I might get in touch with the chemistry department now that I have a general idea about what to ask.

 

22 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

The first big problem is that there are something like a billion known chemicals, and we can't look for all of them in one sample.

If we did then the analysis report would be rather unmanageable; a billion lines most of which said "not detected". I think that's something like a thousand big thick books

(and it wouldn't be cheap)

The other big problem is that, for some materials, you can smell them at concentrations  which are below the limit of detection by GC/MS (or most other techniques).

Right. This was what I had feared/presumed, that it would be too extensive to identify a large percentage of the contents in the air (detectable by human sense of smell), at least using our current technological development.

[John Cuthber]

At the moment what I can smell in the air is smoke- someone nearby must be having a bonfire.
There are a lot of chemicals in smoke- most of the research focussed on tobacco, but apart from nicotine, most of the chemicals will be  similar whatever you burn.

And so I can tell you that much of what I can smell are compounds like phenol and guaiacol together with acrolein, naphthalene and others.

 

It's also possible to connect a gas chromatograph to a glass funnel and put your nose in that funnel.

That way you can smell the compounds as they are separated out. (so you knew which ones are responsible for what odours).

Here's an analysis of the volatiles from heating paper.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00021369.1981.10864521
 

So, if you wanted to know what "smokey" air had in it, you could start with those.

People have done work to identify the major components of smells.

Things like "burning stuff"
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-burnt-smell-standard-compounds-measured-with-GC-MS_tbl1_223971634

or things like "woody" which would include things like pinene and eucalyptol
Or "herbal" where you find compounds like thymol or citral (You might notice, the chemists are not generally very original with names. The dominant odour of lemons is due to two main components, citral and limonene).

So quite a lot of the work has already been done.
It would be expensive to repeat it.

 

[melanin]

So, to round this off constructively as my question has been somewhat adequately resolved: It appears the solution might be a very specialised GC-MS device, or similar, which is capable of identifying chemicals receptive to the human olfactory system. This would involve some insight into which chemicals humans are able to sense, characterise and distinguish between.

If anyone is interested, I've discovered the olfactometer device, which is intended for precisely sensing and sampling the olfactory elements. Initially I had imagined a more magnified and accurate version of such a device, but perhaps this may present itself in the future as the field develops.

Thanks again.

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, melanin said:

If anyone is interested, I've discovered the olfactometer device, which is intended for precisely sensing and sampling the olfactory elements. Initially I had imagined a more magnified and accurate version of such a device, but perhaps this may present itself in the future as the field develops.

I smell a rat, see...  

Sorry, I couldn't resist. 😉

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, melanin said:

So, to round this off constructively as my question has been somewhat adequately resolved: It appears the solution might be a very specialised GC-MS device, or similar, which is capable of identifying chemicals receptive to the human olfactory system. This would involve some insight into which chemicals humans are able to sense, characterise and distinguish between.

If anyone is interested, I've discovered the olfactometer device, which is intended for precisely sensing and sampling the olfactory elements. Initially I had imagined a more magnified and accurate version of such a device, but perhaps this may present itself in the future as the field develops.

Thanks again.

!

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