Posted on 10/28/2019 12:20:54 PM PDT by luvie
I’m sorry for the family. I learned a lot from this post though, thanks for posting it LUV W!
0.03 ppm
Can smell. Safe for 8 hours exposure
4 ppm
May cause eye irritation. Mask must be used as it damages metabolism.
10 ppm
Maximum exposure 10 minutes. Kills smell in 3 to 15 minutes. Causes GAS EYE and throat injury. Reacts violently with dental mercury amalgam fillings.
20 ppm
Exposure for more than 1 minute causes severe injury to eye nerves.
30 ppm
Loss of smell, injury to blood brain barrier through olfactory nerves
100 ppm
Respiratory paralysis in 30 to 45 minutes. Needs prompt artificial resuscitation. Will become unconscious quickly (15 minutes maximum)
200 ppm
Serious eye injury and permanent damage to eye nerves. Stings eye and throat.
300 ppm
Loses sense of reasoning and balance. Respiratory paralysis in 30 to 45 minutes
500 ppm
Asphyxia! Needs prompt artificial resuscitation. Will become unconscious in 3 to 5 minutes. Immediate artificial resuscitation is required.
700 ppm
Breathing will stop and death will result if not rescued promptly, immediate unconsciousness. Permanent brain damage may result unless rescued promptly.
It is detectable at very low concentrations. It is common in a lot of oil/gas fields in West Texas/Eastern New Mexico. It deadens your sense of smell at elevated exposures. The problem is if you aren’t wearing a monitor and the smell disappears, you don’t know if you are out of the “cone” or your sense of smell has been deadened. I worked in those areas for many years and saw a lot of people killed when they opened the hatch to gauge tanks at the tank batteries. One sniff and they were dead, as the concentrations in the tanks were extremely elevated. My brother wrote the H2S regulation for the Texas Railroad Commission, the agency that regulates the oil and gas industry in Texas.
ha. Wasn’t your mistake, it was mine.
It’s used in the tempering of glass.
The most dangerous chemical I ever worked with. Though never had a problem.
We get it wafting up from the sewers on a routine basis. The stench is pretty distinctive, but sewer gas is obviously not lethal in the amounts the typical passerby inhales at the street level. I think this couple may not have been aware of the industrial nature of the source. I recall someone having used a few ampoules to clear out a classroom, as a practical joke.
As usual, it's the dosage that makes the poison.
Isn’t that the stuff they add in small amounts to natural gas to give it the “rotten egg” smell so that you know when there is a gas leak?
Didn’t know that, thanks for the info.
Jacob and Natalee Dean died after being poisoned by hydrogen sulfide gas. (Source: Facebook)
Gas company employee, wife die after Hydrogen Sulfide gas poisoning
That whole part of the Permian Basin (Big Springs, Midland, Odessa) produces Hydrogen Sulfide gas. It will ignite at around 500 degrees F. A cigarette burns at 1200+ degrees. It rapidly destroys one's sense of smell. At 100 PPM you are in real trouble. At 200 PPM you're a ghost.
No Mercaptan is the odorant added to methane (natural gas). However it has sulfide in it which gives it a smell not unlike H2S.
Agree.... Don’t find any house at that location but do find a oil pump
working there. They are sometimes called a horse or donkey pump.
I worked on a drilling rig in south Texas in my youth. We were trained in the dangers of Hydrogen Sulphide extensively. Up to the point that if the blowout preventers didn’t activate to set the well on fire and run as last case scenario.
On one we’ll we drilled we detected low levels when we reached the depth where the gas was to be produced. We ran casing, cemented it in and moved the rig to let the completion unit finish the well as usual.
When they were drilling the cement plug out one hand was out catching a sample of the cuttings and fell over dead. Another hand went out to help him and died.
The driller knew what it was and shut it in and drove off calling for help.
I never learned how they finished the hole but they did.
Smells like rotten eggs. Chemistry classes use to make it during class, believe it or not. When my group took chemistry, we cancelled that little experiment.
It’s a natural chemical that unfortunately comes with natural gas and crude oil. Smells like rotten eggs.
No, those are mercaptans.
“In pure form hydrogen sulfide is odorless. “
No, it smells like rotten eggs. You are thinking about natural gas or perhaps carbon monoxide.
At least as toxic as hydrogen cyanide. ...it is the smell of eggs...but our noses are very sensitive to it...so we can smell it as less than toxic levels...but if you smell it...GET OUTTA THERE PRONTO.
Hydrogen Sulfide occurs naturally in crude oil and can be produced by sewage decomposing. Above a very low concentration, it will immediately take out a person’s olfactory sense. (If the concentration is high enough it kills your sense of smell almost instantly) At low concentrations it has the rotten egg smell similar to sulfur. Concentrations above IDLH levels it will render a person unconscious in seconds.
Oil Refineries and Sewage Treatment plants are where it is commonly found. The Oil Refineries process the hydrogen sulfide into pure sulfur and sell it.
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