Chemistry
The composition of farts varies dramatically among individuals. Flatulence produces a mixture of gases with the following six as major components:
- carbon dioxide,
- hydrogen,
- hydrogen sulfide,
- methane,
- nitrogen,
- oxygen.
Methane burns in oxygen forming water and carbon dioxide often producing a blue hue (ΔHc = -891 kJ/mol), as:
- CH4(g) + 2O2(g) → CO2(g) + 2H2O(g)
Hydrogen sulfide also combusts (ΔHc = -519 kJ/mol) to
- 2H2S(g) + 3O2(g) → 2SO2(g) + 2H2O(g)
The odor associated with flatus is due to hydrogen sulfide, skatole, indole, volatile amines and short chain fatty acids. These substances are detectable by olfactory neurons in concentrations as low as 10 parts per billion, hydrogen sulfide being the most detectable.
Read more about this topic: Fart Lighting
Famous quotes containing the word chemistry:
“The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“If thought makes free, so does the moral sentiment. The mixtures of spiritual chemistry refuse to be analyzed.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world.... I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: “I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.””
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)