Why does saltwater smell, but salt and water separately are scentless? ?

Question

Does it have to do with NaCl separating into Na and Cl which then bond with the H20 molecules?

Answer 1

no, it's all the fish crapping in the water.

Answer 2

Pure salt and pure water does not create odor when mixed.  Sea water has LOTS of c**p in it beside salt and water.

Answer 3

I'm not sure

Answer 4

The seashore is smell is caused by the chemical  dimethly sulfide which is referred to as  DMS . It produced by algaen and bacteria in the ocean in the ocean and is released into the sea water and then into  the air. It is a small molecure containing carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and sulfer.

Molecules that contain sulfur are usually smelly like garlic and skunk odors.

Answer 5

Kevin,

"If you take distilled water and mix it with salt, the mixture still smells."

Oh, really?  Did you perform the experiment yourself, preferably double blind where you try to identify multiple samples of salt water and pure water by smell alone, when neither you nor the person recording your answers knows which is which?  This is a science forum, and scientists don't just make assertions without testing them.

I just tested it.  No, a mixture of salt water in a glass *doesn't* have any odour.

You ever been out in the middle of the ocean?  Doesn't smell there, either, not like is does on the beach, anyway.  The scent you associate with the sea, sailors associate with land.  It tends to show up just along the shoreline, so it's *not* due to the salt alone.  

Michael's on the right track, here, I think.  I doubt that "sea air" odour is due exclusively to dimethylsulphide, but it'll certainly contribute.  Bacterial decomposition of plant and animal wastes produces lots of interesting and highly volatile sulphur and nitrogen compounds, which have intense odours.

Edit:

"But, if you oversaturate it, it has a slight odor. "

What do you mean by "oversaturate"?   A saturated solution contains as much solute as it is thermodynamically capable of holding, with the dissolved and undissolved solute in equilibrium.  There is a state called "supersaturated", in which a solution contains more solute than is thermodynamically favourable, but the solute is not precipitating and restoring equilibrium for kinetic reasons.  Usually such a solution is prepared by rapidly cooling a saturated solution in which the solute's solubility has a steep temperature dependence.  But I'm not sure how you'd make one with salt, because NaCl has very little variation in its solubility with temperature.

Let's assume you just mean "saturated".  Your claim is that a saturated aqueous solution of NaCl has an odour?  Sorry, I disagree.  Either you have some crazy genetic scent detection ability that most people don't have, or you're imagining it, because I detect no odour from such a solution.  Again, a definitive proof would be a blind smell-test -- if you can pick out which five of ten liquids are salt water and which are water alone, maybe I'll reconsider, but my bet is that you'll do no better than random chance.  

Which really makes sense, because nobody has any physical explanation for how such an odor could result.  Nobody has an answer to your question.  My suspicion is that's because you're asking us to explain something that's not real.

Answer 6

I think it has to do with salt water containing other c**p in it...like animal waste and bacteria...  Unless you really are just talking about adding salt to water and having it have a smell.

Answer 7

No, it has to do with the fact that fish (and other creatures) live in the sea and p**p and have s*x in the water.

Seriously, there are pollutants in the water, both man-made and natural, that affect the smell of sea water as opposed to salt and water mixed together.

Answer 8

yes,salt water does smell.why?i don,know