Smell
Dimethyl sulfide is said to have a characteristic cabbage-like smell that becomes highly disagreeable at higher concentrations. While some report that DMS has a low olfactory threshold that varies from 0.02 to 0.1 ppm between different persons, it has been suggested that the stench (and cabbage smell?) attributed to dimethyl sulfide may in fact be due to di- and polysulfides and thiol impurities, since the odor of dimethyl sulfide is much less disagreeable after it is freshly washed with saturated aqueous mercuric chloride. Dimethyl sulfide is also available as a food additive to impart a savory flavor; in such use, its concentration is low. Beetroot, asparagus, cabbage, corn and seafoods produce dimethyl sulfide when cooked.
Marine phytoplankton also produces dimethyl sulfide. Andrew Johnston, of the University of East Anglia, has characterized DMS as being the "smell of the sea". It would be more accurate to say that DMS is a component of the "smell of the sea," another being pheromones of algae called dictyopterenes.
Dimethyl sulfide is also an odorant emitted by kraft pulping mills, and a byproduct of Swern oxidation.
Dimethyl sulfide, dimethyl disulfide and dimethyl trisulfide have been confirmed as volatiles given off by the fly-attracting plant known as dead-horse arum (Helicodiceros muscivorus). The plant fools flies into pollinating it by emitting an odor like rotting meat, which is an attractive food source for flies.
Read more about this topic: Dimethyl Sulfide
Famous quotes containing the word smell:
“Let my muse
Fail of thy former helps, and only use
Her inadulterate strength. What’s done by me
Hereafter shall smell of the lamp, not thee.”
—Robert Herrick (1591–1674)
“This brand of soap has the same smell as once in the big
House he visited when he was eight:”
—Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)
“The man who, from the beginning of his life, has been bathed at length in the soft atmosphere of a woman, in the smell of her hands, of her bosom, of her knees, of her hair, of her supple and floating clothes, ... has contracted from this contact a tender skin and a distinct accent, a kind of androgyny without which the harshest and most masculine genius remains, as far as perfection in art is concerned, an incomplete being.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)