I was chopping onions the other day and was getting aggravated that no matter how many times I washed my hands they still smelled like onions. So I looked up ways to remove it and the internet told me a stainless steel spoon. I rubbed the spoon with water all over my hands and the smell is magically gone. How does that work?
In: Chemistry
Stainless steel is a mix of metals, including one called “Chromium”. This “chromium” is what’s called an “oxidizer”, which means it works with oxygen to break some other molecules apart and turn them into smaller molecules, like Legos. For smells, that means the smell particles get ripped apart into smaller particles that can’t be smelled anymore. Think of it like a page in your book. While it’s in the book, you can read the story, and if you rip the page out, you can still read the page, but it might not make sense anymore. Now, if you rip up the page, you won’t be able to read it at all. That’s what chromium does to smells, it rips them up until your nose can’t “read” them anymore. The water just makes it easier, like getting the page wet before you rip it up.
The smells from onions comes from sulphur compounds. The steel binds to the sulphur molecules, preventing them from forming the gas produced when exposed to the moisture from your skin.
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