Plain carbon steel with less than 0.5 percent carbon, when cut with a ceramic cutting disc, not only emits small sparks of metallic particles that are oxidized to incandescent glow, but also leaves a peculiar smell. What is source of the smell? The smell is not entirely metallic, as far as I can sense.
The smell from metallic objects like copper pennies and steel rods that come in contact to our skin is often souced from inorganic or organo-phosphate compounds found on surface of the metals, or at least, result of accelerated catalytic breakdown of some skin carbonyl compounds. But what caused the smell from steel cutting that is not contact with skin?
My guesses are
1. Sourced from trace amount of P and S (
Dear Sumit, many thanks for sharing this very interesting technical question which is certainly of broad general interest to many other RG members as well. In fact, this is not a trivial question. It is only 15 year ago that researchers discovered what the origin of the garlic-like smell is which is observed when steel is cut or dissolved in acid. The researchers identified small organophosphines like methylphosphine, CH3PH2, and dimethylphosphine, (CH3)2PH, as the sources for the metallic / garlic-like odor. For more information about this please have a look at the following useful link:
Mystery Behind Iron's Smells Is Revealed
https://cen.acs.org/articles/84/web/2006/10/Mystery-Behind-Irons-Smells-Revealed.html
Good luck with your work and best wishes, Frank Edelmann
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