Long-term Area Denial using a Battery Powered Electronic Air-Freshner

[nbk2000]

I recently saw these new air freshner devices that use a piezoelectric disc to vaporize a minute amount of aromatic oil to "freshen" the air for up to (according to the package) 60 DAYS! at the minimal setting.

The cost is less than 10 dollars and they run off of a AA battery.

Now, how to apply this...

Since the the oil container is replaceable, and contains over an ounce of fluid, how about substituting chloropicrin?

This isn't intended as a weapon per-se, more like a means of preventing someone from occupying an area that you wish to remain vacant, only without the hassle of explosives or nasty poisons that'll leave a body or attract attention with a swarm of flies. (eewww!)

I had in mind an abandoned house that you might occassionaly use as a lab, but don't want to risk homeless trash finding your stash.

Or perhaps an abandoned industrial site that you'll use for testing devices, but don't want occupied in the meantime?

These tiny devices would be placed around the site, indoors of course, and create an atmosphere that would be untenable for more than a few minutes at most, as the vapor concentration would gradually build up over time if totally enclosed.

When you're ready for using the place for yourself, you won't have to bother with tedious decontamination, as you'd simply go in (with gas-mask or large, clear, plastic bag over your head), disconnect the batteries, and let the place air out for an hour.

Given the minute amount that's been dispersed in a highly volatile vapor form, there'd be nothing to really soak into the wood/concrete that'd make it a persistant irritant.

[meselfs]

Definitely it's a neat device and an idea to consider, but do you really think that if someone comes into your shack, goes insane itching the eyes and maybe puking, s/he won't tell somebody?

Better then anything I could think of, though (actually I live rural already, so this is no issue. I'd just recommend everyone to live rural :D. Shacks are readily available around here.).

[croc]

Excellent idea NBK, I was thinking that if a nerve agent such as soman was put in that devise and dropped in a bin in a shopping center would be able to kill hundreds. As soman has a fruity odor people would like the smell and breathe more. Also soman is the toughest nerve agent to treat. After a while people would give signs of nerve agent poisoning and drop dead all over the place before much can be done.

+++++++++++

Dude, stop talking, you're embarassing yourself. :rolleyes:

[akinrog]

Maybe instead of using an agent, one may use OC (pepper spray) or some mercaptanes to repel the intruders. My choice woulde be for mercaptanes, since anything unusual (like lacrymators, or OC, and worst of all nerve agents) shall draw attention of the piggies (and goats in shithole countries).

And I believe nobody can stand such a nasty and stinking smell of mercaptanes. However one drawback with this approach you have to stand that stink too. :eek: :(

[ProdigyChild]

You can improve the effect by placing a sign like 'mercury/PCB/dioxine/depleted uranium/some-fantasy-chemical-name/... contaminated area - keep out' + a scull sign + maybe some ribbons across the entry to make people understand WHY they should not go in. Furthermore it's officially labeled as dangerous place so no need to report. Those who step beyond the sign soon smell a strange odour and give up. Placing a dead rat/other animal somewhere behind the sign would further distract bold ones (children?!) and those who don't know what mercury/PCB/... is.

Also, placing some traps, that cause pain after trespassing can be of some help too. Imagine you step into a nail covered by moss or cut from a sharp edge or pin at the doorknob. It strongly reduces your will to explore the forbidden area - especially if it hurts like hell due to some chemicals put on the pin :D . And it's unrelated to the sign you placed and programs the victims brain not to return here.

However, I have my doubts, that long term exposure of low concentration chemicals prevents the walls from absorbing. All things try to reach an equilibrium - in your case the walls will absorb so much, that they will try to re-establish the low concentration that used to be there before venting. Put one drop of styrene in your room. Vent after one day. Close the windows, and enter after a short while. The smell is there again. You don't get the taste out of your room in a short period of time!

[meselfs]

Excellent idea NBK, I was thinking that if a nerve agent such as soman was put in that devise and dropped in a bin in a shopping center would be able to kill hundreds. As soman has a fruity odor people would like the smell and breathe more. Also soman is the toughest nerve agent to treat. After a while people would give signs of nerve agent poisoning and drop dead all over the place before much can be done.
Actually, when one person falls like a fly in permethrin fog everyone runs out the building.


I was thinking, what about 1,5 diaminopentane? This is the active ingredient in the smell produced by dead animals. It's the real thing.
It won't arouse suspition as much as the chloropicrin: the bum won't find it horribly unnatural. He'll just decide that this is an unacceptable home even for him and go away.

[megalomania]

What about the smell they put in natural gas? I forget what that is, but everyone knows it.

[nbk2000]

Some people have no sense of smell, usually winos who've let themselves degenerate to such a level as to find such places suitable as a home, so it'd have to be an irritant, not a smell. Though smells would be good as a harrasment measures against businesses or such, especially food-related, as who'd want to eat at a resturant that smells like a dead rat? :p

If there's a sign (well weathered, of course) at an industrial site that says "DANGER-CONTAMINATED AREA", then they'd get the hint when their eyes start watering and throat burning.

Houses could have a "Condemned-Dangerous to Occupy" put on them and, again, the irritation would be expected for that.

Besides, what are they going to do, call the cops?

"Hello, 911? I broke into an industrial complex to live in because I'm a drug-addled derilict, and I ignored these signs saying 'Contaminated Area-Keep Out', and now I'm wheezing for breath and crying like a bitch." ;)

Lethal agents aren't acceptable because

A: Dead bodies draw attention.
B: You'd have to clean up the mess if no one else found it first.
C: BIG TIME HEAT if you use any type of CW agent for something so P.E.T.T.Y. as keeping out bums. :rolleyes:

Besides, even if the irritant does soak into the walls, and releases over time, how long do you expect to be in there? I'd be in there for less than an hour to do my thing and get the fuck out, so persistance in the walls would be a good thing. :)

The gas smell is ethyl mercaptain, I believe.

[meselfs]

Good points.
And it's ethyl mercaptan, no 'i'.

[nbk2000]

My captain, my captain, why have thou forsaken me?

;)

I was thinking a good adjunct to an irritant would be a myotic, such as DFP.

Minute amounts, far below that needed to kill or even sicken, would cause the intruders pupils to shrink to pinpoints, creating the feeling of impending doom as everything starts to darken, the light from their flashlight growing ever dimmer, and the shadows start to solidify into terrifying forms! :eek: ;) :D

[nbk2000]

Found an interesting product being used by LAPD to keep derilects out of abandoned buildings.

It's called "SkunkShot", and is a synthetic skunk smell mixed in with a silicone gel, to be dispensed from a small tube. Apparently, according to the articles about it's use as such, it'll persist for weeks. :)

At only $15 for a tube, enough for a house, it's cheap enough to try out.

I'd go with putting the product on small cards, and wedging the cards out of sight. This would allow for the cards to be removed, thus removing the smell with them, rather than having to wait for the product to lose activity over time, like you would if you applied it to the structure itself.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006A7EDU/102-1074441-9280963?v=glance&n=284507

They also make a granular form that can be sprinkled about. Seems like just the thing for filling up small stink grenades with. :)

[Jacks Complete]

Another brilliant idea, NBK. Subversion of technology. ;-)

As regards the sign, I've never seen one that specifically says what the risk is, except for asbestos. It just says "Contaminated area", and never tells the sheeple what to be afraid of, only that they should be afraid!

[simply RED]

some off topic:
It is very possible that bad smell gived the CWs the bad name :) .

Bad smell is not common for all poisons , btw :
Diphosgene, fluoroethyl-fluoroacetate have fruity smells in low concentreation. Methanol and fluoroethanol are difficult to distinguish from
ethanol. Cyanide smells like bitter almonds. Ethanediol is sweet.....

Another idea to give the CWs a better appearance is to mix it with parfume.
"Nobody ever thought that those toxic sprays used against flies may explode on heating" said Rachel Carson which gives an idea of filling a container under pressure with something significant...
-----------------

The question about location of a lab or stash is importaint. Those smart ideas may prove in the practice. Like marking the chemicals wrong (for example the hexogen - NH4NO3) and only you know which is what.

[Chris The Great]

Most nerve agents smell fuity in relatively high concentrations, but generally they are fatal long before that so it is kind of an irrelevent point.

You could take advantage of the fact that nerve agents cause intense myosis (constricting of the pupil) in concentrations much lower than the fatal concentration, however I see that idea being far to dangerous to the user, you'd probably end up killing yourself by slowly absorbing a lethal dose of the vapour through your skin.


With the synthetic skunk smell, the more chemically inclined could probably synthesis large amounts for very cheap. Skunk odor is from n-butyl mercaptan, and some other mercaptans (isopropyl mercaptan for example) smell even stronger.
I am not 100% sure of the synthesis but I think it is just mix the alcohol and sodium hydrogen sulfide as per:
ROH + NaSH -> RSH (mercaptan) + NaOH
Don't quote me on that though, I have never actually seen a "real" synthesis, just the occasional bit of info here and there on the net.

Silica gel can be found as (expensive) cat litter, I got 2kg of it under the brand name "silica cat litter" which described itself as being able to absorb the odours into "millions of tiny pores". Soak up the mercaptan in the silica gel and you've got your own mix! Maybe not as fancy as stuff that comes in a tube but cheaper and probably more effective since there isn't a limit on how much mercaptan you can add.

The stuff smells so incredibly strong that the only first hand account I have of someone handling the compounds (on the old powerlabs forum, not sure if it still exists) described immediate tearing of the eyes, violent illness, etc.


You could also use 1,6-diaminopentane (as mentioned already), which smells like a rotting corpse, under the floorboards of other places to draw the piggies attention in a long, futile search for a stashed corpse that just isn't there. As you say, dead bodies draw attention, and the piggies will want to find it, but in reality it is just some little bits of stinky silica gell scattered under floorboards all over the place.
Maybe toss a larger amount down some really small pipe that goes into the ground. THAT will keep them busy as they try to figure out how the hell the dead body appears to be inside a 3 inch diameter pipe that goes straight into the ground :D
No clue on the synthesis however.

That is not really an "Area denial" weapon but will keep the piggies attention focused elsewhere in a pinch.

[simply RED]

Ethyl mercaptan:
CH3CH2Br + NaSH = EtSH + NaBr tried and working with low yield.

(better find some bromide with higher boiling point and directly boil it with the NaSH - in three necked flask with condenser)

[nbk2000]

The vapor form of nerve agents requires a hugely excessive dosage, compared to inhalation or contact, something on the order of several orders of magnitude more.

Exposure of men to sarin vapor concentrations at 20,000mg/cu.M (wearing only mask, shorts, and shoes) resulted in a lowering of blood cholinesterase (SP?) on only 10% or so, for a half hours exposure

Comparatively, exposure to 200mg/cu.M would be fatal in just minutes if inhaled.

Trying to disguise the smell is kinda pointless, as OPA's are generally odorless at effective concentrations. But, if you had to, you should go with food smells like popcorn, that wouldn't be out of place in the target enviroment.

I know we've discussed this very idea before. I think it was in a thread about some gas the jews were using in palestine that smell like mint or some such thing.

[Alexires]

From "Organic Chemistry for Medical, Intermediate Science and Pharmaceutical Students" by A. Killen Macbeth (1946) pg. 84 we have

"The mercaptans may be prepared by either of two principal methods.

(1) By the action of phosphorus pentasulphide on an alcohol a mercaptan is produced along with phosphorus pentoxide.

5C2H5.OH + P2S5 = 5C2H5.SH + P2O5

(2) When a concentrated solution of a potassium alkyl sulphate is heated with potassium hydrosulphide a mercaptan is distilled off.

KC2H5SO4 + KSH = C2H5.SH + K2SO4."

Interestingly enough, it goes on to talk about the hypnotics trional and tetronal being formed from methyl ethyl ketone and diethyl ketone respectively. The bastard tries to find your chem lab, but finds himself asleep on the floor from said hypnotics *laugh*

[bobo]

These synthesis are not main stream! First, I think P2S5 is a regulated chemical, like big time regulated. No idea why, probably for chemical agents or somesuch.

The bromide to thiol is a good starting point because bromides are easily prepared from alcohol.

Actually you can use the more common thiosulfate to form bunte salt which gives thiol on hydrolysis, and you can get a thiol from grignard reagent acting on elemental sulfur. Thioureum can be used on bromides and iodides, I forgot the exact conditions though. Other reagent that people refer to is to use basic thioaceticacid salts, but I never got that route to work.

[FUTI]

I like P2S5 although they don't let me use it here. The method of choice for most thiols is through use of thiourea (not friendly chemical).

I can distinguish methanol and ethanol easily. Story about common smell of those two alcohols comes from fact that low quality or aged methanol has ester like flavour like some boose and as such atract alcoholics of all kinds to their final cup.

[Alexires]

Bobo. I realise that they are probably not "main stream". I never said them to be so. All I did was remember that there was a synthesis in one of my books and put it on here. My knowledge of chemistry is Yr 12, mixed with some of my own private learning. I simply thought someone here might have made some use of it.

[nbk2000]

Saw a new product at the grocery store today.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FGE24O/104-6728443-7615157?v=glance&n=284507

It's an automatic shower cleaner appliance that you install in the shower stall. When you push a button, there's a minutes delay before it starts spraying a stream of the cleaning solution in an 8 foot circle around it. The device is built to spray a couple ounces of fluid at a time.

The bottles are easily refilled, the device is only $25 bucks, and a battery powered sprayer seems just the ticket for this:

Modify switch so it's activated by a long timer that activates every few hours or days, fill bottle with agent of choice, and place device up high so spray gets scattered about.

FTW. :)

[nbk2000]

Interesting video, that shows a police SWAT unit running in terror from a house because of the smell of natural gas.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4812ae0f39

Thing is, natural gas is itself odorless, and it's the warning odor that is added to the gas (usually a sulfide) that the pigs are reacting to.

Potential?

Oh, and the fun of watching a piggy blast himself with the flash-bang in his pants pocket. :p

[Hinckleyforpresident]

About a year ago (I think) there was panic throughout Manhattan due to naturally occurring mercaptans drifting over the city from New Jersey. A lot of people called the police and fire departments thinking it was a massive gas leak. CNN covered the story all day until they figured it out.

[panzerkampfwagen]

Formeldahyde would also be very effective. It has a very strong odor in very small quantities. It can be lethal, but only in people dumb enough to sit in a tank of it. It is also a very nasty eye irretant in very small amounts. I have had a couple of bad experiences with formeldahyde soaked into animal tissues. It is very strong, the gov. used it to clean up that Rhesus Ebola outbreak about ten years ago. If it can kill ebola, it can solve anything. Also, setting one up with chlorine pool cleaner and one with ammonia would be an effective deterent.

[Jacks Complete]

I've seen a gas leak in the UK, and it was quite the show, police sealed the street, gas engineers running around, and a few front doors getting kicked in.

Completely irrelevant for this topic, in a way, but it could be useful! Get some mercaptane then spray it into the target house, and call it in. Or post a can of gas through the letterbox, with a slow 'leak'. The gas board will break the door down to find the leak, so it could be useful for those hard targets you want to scope out.

[chemdude1999]

Jacks, sorry to hear the police are so gungho over there. I can certainly see them doing it. I can envision the lock making a nice spark as the copper put his foot through and subsequently dying from "gas-induced trauma".

Here in the states, the gas company would turn the main off and evacuate a few of the surrounding homes. They would at least try to contact the homeowner before going in. A HazMat team might be called in for extra safety (to avoid ignition while airing out). After airing out, the house would be carefully inspected for the leak and corrections made.

These types of leaks most often come from those flexible connectors on the back of gas appliances. Code requires they be changed nowadays.

So, here in the states, it would be more of a serious prank.

[megalomania]

My research adviser said when he was a grad student he accidentally spilled a liter of mercaptain in the fume hood. It all vaporized and went up the exhaust, but the exhaust just gets vented on the roof of the chem building. The resulting gas cloud enveloped most of the campus and sent the maintenance staff on a panicked search for a gas leak. He did not confess to this at the time...