Desulfovibrio desulficans reduces sulfates in waterlogged soils and sewage to hydrogen sulfide, a gas with the rotten egg odour so common to such places.
Some well-water supplies, for example, have a rotten-egg odour that is caused by hydrogen sulfide gas.
It can be detected by the human nose at a concentration of a few parts per billion and is readily identifiable as having a rotten-egg odour.
One example of microbial spoilage of canned foods is "sulfide spoilage" caused by C. nigrificans, in which contents are blackened and have the odour of rotten eggs.
One of the most familiar sulfur compounds is hydrogen sulfide, also known as sulfureted hydrogen, or stinkdamp, H2S, the colourless, extremely poisonous gas responsible for the characteristic odour of rotten eggs.
At a concentration of 0 25 ppm H2S has a specific odour of rotten eggs.
Hydrogen sulfide was first noticed in the biomedical literature as a poisonous, colourless, flammable gas with the characteristic foul odour of rotten eggs (Kimura, 2010; Wang, 1976).
The Japanese scientists and engineers who came up with the 50,000-yen (£400) wasabi alarm tried hundreds of odours, including rotten eggs, before settling on the Japanese condiment – a favourite of sushi lovers.
Lower-molecular-weight thiols have strong, generally repugnant, skunky or rotten-egg-like odours, which can be detected by humans in air at very low concentrations for example, 0.5 part per billion (0.5 × 10−9) in the case of ethanethiol or benzenethiol.
Nitrogen is also considered a key modulator in the formation of volatile sulfur compounds, including H2S, a highly potent compound which possesses an odour reminiscent of rotten egg (Rauhut 1993).
Comment: Trimethylaminuria usually presents with a body odour resembling that of rotten or decaying fish, the result of excess excretion of TMA in the breath, sweat, urine and reproductive fluids.
