I've not had personal experience with selenophenol but I wonder how it compares with thioacetone when it comes a human's ability to detect it.
Here's a stinky selenium anecdote from when I was a kid. In those days I used to build electronic projects out of parts from war surplus equipment. This was before the time when silicon diode rectifiers were cheap enough to buy on a kid's pocket money (especially so the high current variety), so the fallback was either vacuum tubes or selenium rectifiers.
Anyway, selenium rectifiers were cheap and plentiful except that I didn't have easy access to the high current variety. This led to the rectifiers often being overloaded and sometimes failing catastrophically. It turns out that in their death throes selenium rectifiers emit the most horrible pungent stink somewhat akin to hydrogen sulphide, however once one becomes familiar with the stench there's no mistaking it for H2S.
I've been known to stink the house out much to my mother's chagrin. Yes, even back then I was aware that these selenium fumes were toxic so I did exercise some care but it'd not have passed any of today's occupational health standards.
BTW, selenium rectifiers can be remarkably tolerant of overload and abuse, moreover they warn you when overstressed or they're about to fail as they begin to stink to high heaven.
Here's a stinky selenium anecdote from when I was a kid. In those days I used to build electronic projects out of parts from war surplus equipment. This was before the time when silicon diode rectifiers were cheap enough to buy on a kid's pocket money (especially so the high current variety), so the fallback was either vacuum tubes or selenium rectifiers.
Anyway, selenium rectifiers were cheap and plentiful except that I didn't have easy access to the high current variety. This led to the rectifiers often being overloaded and sometimes failing catastrophically. It turns out that in their death throes selenium rectifiers emit the most horrible pungent stink somewhat akin to hydrogen sulphide, however once one becomes familiar with the stench there's no mistaking it for H2S.
I've been known to stink the house out much to my mother's chagrin. Yes, even back then I was aware that these selenium fumes were toxic so I did exercise some care but it'd not have passed any of today's occupational health standards.
BTW, selenium rectifiers can be remarkably tolerant of overload and abuse, moreover they warn you when overstressed or they're about to fail as they begin to stink to high heaven.