hydrogen reacting with sulphur

[Halash]

will hydrogen react with sulphur??? i believe that they willl, becuase sulphur and oxygen have the same number of electrons in their outer electron cloud, right????????

[budullewraagh]

yes, if heated and in an otherwise inert atmosphere. they form H2S, a very very very toxic gas similar to hydrogen cyanide

[Halash]

doesn't H2S stink like hell??????????? i think they use it for stink bombs.........

 

 

i was thinking i could use a hydrogen-sulphur reaction for a rocket engine.....

sugar and sulphur ground up and packed together in a rocket shell

[budullewraagh]

nobody should use it for a stink bomb. it smells awful- it's the smell of human gas and rotten eggs

 

and did you read the above? you dont want to mess around with H2S. maybe in minute quantities for the production of mercaptans, but the hydrogen-sulfur rocket idea is downright suicidal

[jdurg]

doesn't H2S stink like hell??????????? i think they use it for stink bombs.........

 

 

i was thinking i could use a hydrogen-sulphur reaction for a rocket engine.....

sugar and sulphur ground up and packed together in a rocket shell

 

Yes, H2S does smell. It is the smell of rotted eggs. The human nose is able to detect H2S in amazingly small quantities. Even the tiniest amounts of H2S will be VERY noticeable to a human being. This is a very good thing because H2S is insidiously toxic. It's up there with hydrogen cyanide in terms of lethality. The thing is, you are able to detect the presence of H2S at levels far below the lethal range. What's problematic is that H2S numbs the scent receptors in your nose. So after a short exposure, you can't smell it anymore and you'll think that it has all dissipated and you'll stay in the same area. When the coroner stops by, however, they'll know that it didn't all dissipate.

 

I believe that 'stink bombs' use a mixture of sodium thiosulphate and hypochlorite to generate some sulfur oxides which are easy to detect as a nasty smell without a very high concentration being needed.

[woelen]

Don't worry about the sulphur-hydrogen rocket. It won't work. Sulphur and hydrogen can be made to react, but only with great difficulty. H2S certainly does not form spontaneously and you have to heat a gaseous mix of H2 and S8 and slowly (very slowly) an equilibrium is obtained with H2S, H2 and S8. In fact, this method of making H2S is not used anywhere.

 

H2S indeed is VERY toxic and one should not regard this as a nice playing thing. As Jdurg pointed out, at higher concentration it kills your sense of smell and you can be in a high concetration of H2S without you knowing it. It will kill you in that case.

 

The stink bombs I know from my youth were a dilute solution of ammonium sulfide. When exposed to the air, they give a mix of H2S and NH3. The amounts formed, however, were so low that no serious risks were introduced.