Chapter 1

Introduction To Odor and Odor Control

Odor is the most memorable of mans senses, and it is one of the most subtle. Just a hint of an odor can bring memories flooding back, and almost undetectable odors can attract or repel a member of the opposite sex. A recent study in Scientific American illustrates this. Women were asked to select between tee shirts, which had been slept in over night by various men. In almost every case they selected a shirt which had been worn by a man of the opposite gene pool. They were somehow able to discern the difference almost at an instinct level. The result would be a better match for strengthening their gene pool. It correlated previous studies with other animals. The only exception was when they were pregnant or using birth control pills, which imitates pregnancy. Add in the new recognition of pheromones, the practice of aromatherapy and aromachology and we begin to see the degree and effect which odor can play in our lives. Aromatherapy involves essential oils and massage to make us feel better. The aroma is just part of the therapy, while aromachology is the study of how fragrance molecules create nerve impulses to influence our mood and behavior. Aroma has both a psychotropic effect (influencing the mind) and a somatic effect (influencing the body). Scientists are now quantifying anecdotal material accumulated over hundreds of years. Dr. Alan Hirsch of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation Ltd., Chicago states that, For centuries, odors have been used to impact behavior and moods. He notes that odor affects behavior in three ways: 1. Pavlovian - a conditioned response. You smell chocolate chip cookies and feel like you have to eat some. 2. Olfactory - evokes a childhood or other memory. 3. Direct - action on the brain itself, like a drug. Jasmine for example stimulates beta waves in the frontal lobe making a person more alert. It is no wonder then that the control of unwanted odors is a serious concern of a major portion of modern society. In marketing their now discontinued Sylgard brand antimicrobial to the carpet industry, the Dow Corning Corp. cited the results of market focus study groups consisting of women who had either purchased carpeting in the previous six months, were currently shopping for carpet or whose carpet was more than five years old. They found among other things that there was almost total consumer acceptance that odors come with the territory when you have carpet. According to the study, The consumer has long been aware of the problem of carpet odors. The past two decades have seen the introduction of foaming carpet cleaners, air fresheners and powdered carpet deodorizers to eliminate carpet odors. Consumers spend more than $500 million dollars per year on air fresheners and related products, so they must feel that 1-1

household odors and mildews are a problem. The odor control feature is important to both the commercial and residential markets, where claims such as microorganism control and hygienic freshness have real value. An obsession with odors and the harmful microorganisms that exist in the home have convinced the housewife that the odor control feature is a must. And she is willing to pay extra for it! A desired service and willingness to pay is a good motivation for anyone to take a serious look at the odor control industry. Of course, Dow Corning was talking about an antimicrobial treatment to prevent odors from bacteria and mildew, but there are a myriad of other sources as well. Cigarette smoke, off-gassing of various building materials, spoilage and spills, pets, and dead bodies are just a few of the odors with which an Odor Control Technician will have to deal. You will note that not all of these are in the carpet or upholstery and indeed you will learn how to attack and destroy or control odors throughout the interior of a building or residence. In addition to these real odors the technician may also have to deal with psychological or heightened awareness odors. These are odors which people think they smell based on experiences, suggestions, past impressions or even psychosis. We have even given odorous names to thing that we dont like. Something stinks around here, or somethings fishy, are examples of how odor and psychology are linked. In his book, The Terminal Man author Michael Chrichton noted that whenever his subject became violently psychotic he was overcome by a foul smell until he had killed its source, the victim. This type of odor or more precisely the memory of some odor which is not really present will present one of the most difficult challenges to the technician. We offer the following odor mystery as an example of what an Odor Control Technician might encounter. It is entitled: Stink In The Teepee, or The Odor Was Intense Well, actually it was a house, but it makes a better title with a teepee. You arrive at the customers home and theyre complaining of a musty smell throughout the house. You smelled it briefly when you first walked in, but now its not nearly as obvious. Your first reaction was that it smelled like a cheap motel down by the ocean, years of smoke and mildew and who knows what else. With no clues as to the source you begin your investigation looking for the cause of the smell. You observe that the house is one story, but like so many in the area it has a basement. In addition you note the following: a refrigerator, HVAC system, stove, radiator, dirty ash trays, wall to wall carpet, HVAC filters, cat litterbox, window air conditioner. Of these you quickly pick out and eliminate the least likely since they wouldnt have a musty odor. 1-2

They are: _____________________, _____________________ ,_____________________, and _____________________. Then its on to the rest with your nose as your guide. Each in turn is eliminated as having no musty smell to it. You move on to the basement and when you open the basement door you know you are now on the right track. It hits you as you open the door and you follow your nose to the comer where there are some storage boxes. As you lift them they fall apart and the contents, books, shoes, purses and old clothing fall out. Theyre covered with the telltale gray and black powder - mildew, aspergillis niger - youve found the culprit! Organic materials in a dark area with no air movement. The indoor-outdoor carpet on the floor is still damp in the corner from seepage during the recent heavy rains. You quickly remove the boxes and damaged goods and confirm that the moisture is limited to that area. Then you thoroughly clean the area and treat it with a sanitizer. Lightly misting the area with an odor counteractant clears the air and provides a fresh clean smell. As you climb the stairs you know that the next smell you encounter will be your favorite, cold green cash!

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OLFACTION AND ODOR Olfaction - the sense of smell or act of smelling. This sounds simple enough, but it involves a great deal and is just beginning to be understood, even today. The ancient poet Lucretious speculated that there were minute pores in the nose and that each type of odor fit into a specific area. As it turns out he was very close to the truth. When a real odor is encountered, the pure sensation of smell begins with the olfactory nerves and lobe, which is in the upper part of the nose. Here the cell structure of the nerves are such that they can interact with various gases they encounter sending signals on to the olfactory bulb/lobe and then to the brain for interpretation. We could say then that odor is a gas interpreted by the olfactory lobe.

It is suggested that a typical human may detect up to 10, 000 different odors. We do this with about six million olfactory cells. A dog may have up to two hundred million cells, which helps explain their greater degree of sensitivity. However, dont forget that millions of years of evolution have provided humans with very subtle preferences or instincts where odor is concerned as was illustrated in the T-shirt example. Plus, as we now understand, smell or olfaction is interpreted in the brain, which may allow for various psychological factors as well. Throw in sundry nasal medications or other chemicals and olfaction becomes a very inexact sense. Odor - The characteristic of a substance which makes it perceptible to the sense of smell. Scientists believe that odor can be broken down into seven basic categories. Odors in each of these categories either fit into a receptor site in the olfactory nerves or have a charge which activates a site. The shape of the odor molecule determines how it is recognized. Here are the seven basic odors and their shape or charge: 1. Floral (gardenias or roses) - disk shaped molecule with a tail 2. Minty (peppermint) - wedge shaped molecule 3. Resinous (ether-like, camphor) -elliptical sphere shaped molecule 1-4

4. Musk - Disk shaped molecule 5. Acrid (vinegar) - rod shaped molecule 6. Putrid - negative charge 7. Pungent - positive charge By blending these basic categories all odors are formed. Just like with dyes where we can formulate all variations of color with just the three primary colors. You may wonder how much odor is required for us to detect it? In the carpet industry we discovered that there doesnt have to be very much. The substance which created new carpet smell, 4-phenol cyclohexane (4P6H) was found to be detectable in quantities as low as 1/2 part per million! Odors occur at the molecular level as we have discussed, but that doesnt give an accurate picture of their size. When we are measuring dust, soil or the droplet size of our odor counteractants we do so in terms of microns. One micron is equal to one millionth (1/1,000,000) of a meter. A single micron could hold 12,000,000 oxygen molecules and it only takes a few molecules to create the sensation of odor. As we noted there are seven primary odors, but these have to reach the olfactory nerves and lobe to be detected. In order for that to occur the odor must be in the form of a vapor which can reach into the nose. If you have studied how things dry out when they are wet you will have a start on understanding the interactions necessary for odor molecules to reach the nose. Relative humidity, temperature and barometric pressure can all have an effect. There are two major requirements for a substance to have odor, Volatility and Moisture. Volatility is the first requirement. Technically it is the changing from a solid form into a vapor. If a substance doesnt vaporize/volatize it will be undetectable. A glass table top has no odor because it is releasing no vapor. The amount of vapor present will determine how strongly the odor is detected. Moisture is the second requirement. If the odor molecule cannot combine with water, even at a minute level, it will not react with the nerve endings which have a watery film on their surface. Moisture in the form of humidity increases our sensitivity to odors. Humid jungles have more odor than dry deserts, and most of us have noted a dog licking its nose to get a better scent. In addition to the two major requirements odors must also be compatible with the lipids or fatty substances on the nerve endings, and they need to normally be absent from the nose.

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ODOR SOURCES Odor as we now know can come from any volatile source which is detectable by our nose. However, some odors are perceived as pleasant and some are totally undesirable to most people. Just as with our sense of taste, which is closely tied to odor, not everyone likes the same things. Odor control becomes necessary when any unpleasant odor is present and well list and later discuss some of the most common. Common Odor Sources: 1. Mold, Fungus, Mildew

2. Urine

3. Smoke (cigarette or fire)

4. Protein

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5. Skunk

6. Petroleum products fuel oil

7. Dead Body (large or small)

8. Tear Gas

9. _______________________ (insert your favorite) These may be located in buildings, duct work, subfloors, walls, carpet, automobiles or anywhere in which people live or work.

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But dont always look for the most obvious. In a world where a portion of the populace suffers from MCS, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, anything is possible. Although some respected doctors believe that odor is only a trigger to a deeper psychotic problem, we witnessed an MCS reaction in a certification. class. A small amount of ammonia was applied to a carpet to initiate a dye indicator reaction and one of the students ran screaming from the room, they had a drastic reaction to ammonia. An article on MCS notes a person who was suing claiming that a sensitivity to petroleum products was brought on by an insecticide. During an office visit, a doctor had sneaked up behind the individual and opened a small bottle of petroleum solvent. To everyones surprise the individual immediately went into code blue respiratory arrest and was barely saved with CPR and a trip to the emergency ward. These are extreme examples, but are also illustrative of the problems we may face in odor control. ODOR DETECTION PROCEDURES The technicians best instrument for detecting the presence and intensity of odor is the nose, preferably one in good working order. However, as we discover whenever we attempt to identify fibers with the burn test, everyones nose is calibrated or trained to their specific needs. It takes training and practice to establish a memory in the brain for each specific fiber. Over time, most of us can identify the fibers with good accuracy, but in the initial stages where we are trying to compare them to similar existing odors, it is tough. Weve all chuckled at the wine connoisseur who can not only tell the type of verital or grape, but who can also identify the winemaker, the year it was picked, and perhaps even the vineyard in which it was picked. In reality this is possible for some people with the proper training. Many technicians have no problem telling the difference between cat and dog urine simply from the odor. Cats, which have far less sensitive noses than dogs, have a stronger more pungent odor in order to mark their territory for other cats. Granted we can find the source of the urine odor with a black light or moisture meter, but our nose will get us in the right neighborhood. At the moment there are no practical mechanical/electronic odor detection devices available to the technician although engineers at Cal Tech have recently announced the successful development of a true olfactronic device. They used a huge computer and sensors not unlike the ones in our own noses, however, this is useful only in a laboratory setting. There are detection devices for specific gases such as carbon monoxide, but these are keyed to one specific molecule. For the moment, well have to stick with the device on the front of our faces and make sure that we calibrate, that is train it properly. The nose knows!

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Chapter 2

Theory Of Odor Control

Now that we know what odor is and how we detect it we can begin to come up with a systematic method for its control or removal. It generally does not matter whether the odor originated from a fairly common source such as a cat or if it came from some exotic spill. After we locate and identify the source we have four General Principles we can use to begin the process: 1. Remove the source 2. Clean the source area 3. Recreate conditions and deodorize 4. Seal the source (if necessary) Once the source of the odor is either gone of sealed we can use various Deodorization Treatments/Methods to attack any residual odor which has been left behind. Wile this sounds easy, the problems come in where the source is hiding. In the case of urine it may be in the latex, the backing material, the pad, and even the subfloor. With smoke it may be in microscopic pores of the walls, ceiling or other spaces within the structure. Ultimately, we may have to resort to various methods of neutralization to achieve our goal, and even then multiple applications may be the only answer. Often the best system will be a combination of techniques. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 1. Remove the Source - This is the universal first step in general odor removal procedures. Here we need to physically remove as much of the material causing the odor as possible. We literally start out with the largest objects and work our way down to the smallest. If we have a dead rodent we need to get rid of the body. A fire will require removing various debris. When the source material becomes small enough, we will need to remove it at the next level, which involves cleaning.

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Clean the Source - Although we say clean the source, the odor may be far removed from the original source by the time we arrive. Since odors are in the form of vapors they may have traveled some distance and be on or in walls, fabrics or other materials. Smoke odor can travel throughout a structure, but so can the smells of cooking or even mildew. Cleaning, another form of removal, is a sure way to eliminate these traveling odors and it is always a necessary step for permanent elimination.

PRESPRAY

AGITATE

RINSE/EXTRACT

3. Recreate and Deodorize the Source - This is one of the most difficult concepts to understand. In order to neutralize the odor with any of our treatment options we must get them into contact with the source of the odor. Due to a number of factors, this is easier said than done. We already discussed the size of the odor molecules and it should be obvious that they are capable of penetrating into the surface of seemingly nonporous walls or fibers. In addition, in the case of a fire, the heat may have expanded semiporous surfaces temporarily allowing penetration beyond the norm. As well see, we will have to duplicate the conditions using extremely fine delivery systems such as a thermal fogger or ozone to reach these odors recreating the conditions of malodor penetration. 4. Seal the Source - In some cases it will be easier and more practical to simply use a sealer to encapsulate or lock in the odor molecules so they can no longer off gas or be reactivated. A good example of this is smoke odor, which has effectively penetrated the painted surface of a structure. Rather than try and follow it in, or remove the paint, it is more expedient to simply seal it in with another coat. The same applies to urine which has penetrated into a subfloor. Its obviously easier to seal the floor than rip it out. DEODORIZATION TREATMENTS/METHODS 1. Digestion - The use of an enzyme to break down various types of organic matter. There are several forms of enzymes depending on the type of material to be digested and as well see these require special knowledge for proper use.
2. Oxidation - The use of a gas or various liquids to add an oxygen molecule to the odor source either to complete its combustion (smoke), oxidize it or kill it by acting as a disinfectant. Examples would be chlorine bleach and ozone gas.

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