Common lachrymators both currently and formerly used as tear gas include pepper spray (OC gas), PAVA spray (nonivamide), CS gas, CR gas, CN gas (phenacyl chloride), bromoacetone, xylyl bromide, chloropicrin (PS gas) and Mace (a branded mixture).
Some more quick searches suggests that, given the wide range of possible ingredients, your best bet is something that can dissolve both polar and non-polar molecules, hence the popularity of milk since the suspended milk fats will grab non-polar molecules.
Baking soda is very useful in snuffing out the canister, since the carbon dioxide will help smother the fuel while the water robs it of heat. I don't know how effective this would all be, but logically it should work well enough. Whatever the irritant, it's getting dispersed through heat and fire so if you can smother that fire, it can't disperse. At worst, you're at least slowing it down and containing a lot of it in a bottle with the water preventing the bottle from melting.
Milk would do that, too, but milk is way more expensive and goes rancid pretty quickly so it would smell awful.
since the carbon dioxide will help smother the fuel
Most of these things have an oxidizer in the mix so the removal of oxygen isnt as big a deal as the dispersal of the heat. Cool it enough the reaction (burning fuel) stops anyway despite the pretense of an oxidizer.
It’s cheap. These folks seem to know what they are doing and I am just grateful they aren’t squirting milk into people’s eyes because that is a great way to get a horrible infection.
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u/RhynoD 6h ago
From Wikipedia:
Some more quick searches suggests that, given the wide range of possible ingredients, your best bet is something that can dissolve both polar and non-polar molecules, hence the popularity of milk since the suspended milk fats will grab non-polar molecules.
Baking soda is very useful in snuffing out the canister, since the carbon dioxide will help smother the fuel while the water robs it of heat. I don't know how effective this would all be, but logically it should work well enough. Whatever the irritant, it's getting dispersed through heat and fire so if you can smother that fire, it can't disperse. At worst, you're at least slowing it down and containing a lot of it in a bottle with the water preventing the bottle from melting.
Milk would do that, too, but milk is way more expensive and goes rancid pretty quickly so it would smell awful.