What automatic gauges can detect air fresheners like Febreze?
October 22, 2015 12:21 PM   Subscribe

We wonder if a propane detector will work.

Our collaborative studio has a problem with (we think) one member spraying prodigious volumes of an air freshener (in our case, Febreze) in the restrooms, making the air unbreathable and creating slicks of precipitation on the floors.

Our efforts to explain the problem seem not to have reached and persuaded 100% of our members. We don't want to police the restrooms or hide the air freshener, but we're wondering if we might find a reasonably mild but effective deterrent to further Febrezity.

We've heard that ordinary propane detectors can detect Febreze. Before we invest in one, have you — o Reader — got any experience with this sort of thing? Are there propane detectors that go off gently? Are there other automatic gauges that might help us create this mild deterrent?

According to http://febreze.com/en-us/learn/how-febreze-works, one of the active ingredients in Febreze is cyclodextrin. We don't know whether this is the irritant that a detector might detect. Can anyone shed light on this question?
posted by aestival to Technology (15 answers total)
 
An alternative would be to ditch the Febreze and stock up on some Poo Pourri.
posted by alms at 12:40 PM on October 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


How about cutting out the middleman with an automatic deodorizer?
posted by cecic at 12:53 PM on October 22, 2015


Best answer: Those things tend to trigger off of hydrocarbons/alcohols so IF it worked for air fresheners its far more likely it would be picking up on the propellant or solvent than any active ingredient.

Any detector that would be decent enough to work for that would likely be pretty costly (Ones we had at our old lab for explosive gases (hydrogen and the like) were a few hundred bucks each), I've seen cheap ones but I have no idea how well that would work for your purposes.

Honestly just ditching the Febreze for something less irritating would be the FAR easier solution.
posted by Captain_Science at 1:02 PM on October 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


if you had the time and energy, you could use a microphone and a (digitial, audio) filter and look for the sound of the spray. a raspberry pi is probably capable enough, but i don't know how good the filter would need to be. would be an interesting project...
posted by andrewcooke at 1:24 PM on October 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


Could you put a bag of coffee beans or activated charcoal in the bathroom, and ban scented air fresheners in the studio? Fragrances are a common cause of headaches and allergies so it's not a stretch to banish them entirely.

Also— if this is a ventilation problem you should investigate if your exhaust fan and ducts are providing enough vacuum to refresh the air in the bathroom itself.
posted by a halcyon day at 1:52 PM on October 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


Best answer: Here is the Environmental Working Group's 2009 analysis of Febreze; propane is not listed among dozens of constituents detected -- and it can't be the propellant because the propellant is listed as non-flammable.
posted by jamjam at 2:35 PM on October 22, 2015


Best answer: I might be biased since air freshener HORRIBLY irritates my eyes/nose/throat and i consider it chemical warfare, but after repeated problems with this my office just threw out the air freshener for a while. I agree with the comments above about proper ventilation, but some people seem to just have unrealistic expectations for a public bathroom never smelling like a bathroom.

Me and one of the engineers joked about a system like this and realized this is an operator error issue, not something you can engineer to death. If abuse of air freshener is the problem... remove the air freshener.

I like the automatic deodorizer option if only because it says "this is a reasonable amount of air freshening, you do not get to choose". We just straight up trashed the freshener and left it that way for a couple months though. It seemed to recalibrate peoples expectations, and i haven't walked into a gas attack since.
posted by emptythought at 2:54 PM on October 22, 2015 [3 favorites]


Best answer: Here's the MSDS for Febreze Air Effects Air Neutralizer (PDF), and, yeah, propane isn't a propellant:
Contents under pressure with nitrogen
This Procter & Gamble page also suggests that it's just nitrogen.

So you're really looking for something to detect the alcohol in it. The perverse misanthrope in me wants to suggest leaving a candle burning in the restroom, but that's definitely not a good idea from a safety standpoint... [fwooosh!]
posted by straw at 2:55 PM on October 22, 2015


Propane detectors (PDF) are usually some sort of conductivity modifying device which change electrical characteristics when oxygen or a flammable gas attaches to the surface. While propane is commonly monitored using this technique, the sensor isn't very discriminatory usually, and can trigger with other flammable gasses like methane and alcohols.

Fabreze is mostly water, a few percent ethanol, an "odor eliminator derived from corn" (beta-cyclodextrin, which has some pretty cool chemistry), and fragrance. I don't know for a fact, but I would bet a fair chunk of cash that the alcohol is the thing that sets off the LEL detector.

So sure, it's pretty credible that this would work. How sensitive it might be, I couldn't say. Alcohol doesn't persist very long in air, it disperses rapidly and really prefers being in water to air, so it partitions out quickly into whatever droplets or sources there are in the room. I would expect the detector to alarm quite soon after spraying happens but to return to normal fairly quickly as the alcohol disperses.
posted by bonehead at 2:56 PM on October 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


Maybe somebody is having tummy troubles and is trying to be considerate. Would addressing the ventilation in a hard-core way maybe be a way to replace air freshener?
posted by amtho at 2:57 PM on October 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


And no, propane detectors are not generally gentle or quiet.

Propane detectors are used to check if the atmosphere is creeping up to the explosive mix level of fuel, the lower-explosive limit, when a spark or flame or metal-on-metal strike could cause the air to explode. LEL detectors are usually very loud, fire alarm loud, as they only go off when it's necessary to get out as fast as possible.
posted by bonehead at 3:00 PM on October 22, 2015


Detectors are expensive. Signs (suggesting liability for slipping on the floor) and rules confiscating all air-freshener products are all you could try. Is someone smoking weed in the loo and trying to cover for it? Alternatively, maybe someone has giardiasis and is overly concerned about the rancid smell?
posted by scruss at 3:10 PM on October 22, 2015


I'm unclear...do you have a communal bottle/can of air freshener in the bathroom? Remove it.
posted by radioamy at 4:29 PM on October 22, 2015 [4 favorites]


Did they stop making unscented Febreze? If not, get some of that.
posted by wierdo at 10:04 PM on October 24, 2015


how sensitive are propane detectors to methane? would you get false alerts in a bathroom?
posted by andrewcooke at 10:09 AM on October 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


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