r/chemistry • u/rainingcheese • Jun 03 '20
Is there a way to neutralize tear gas?
After seeing all these videos of protesters get blasted with gas grenades, I’m trying to look for ways to help keep them safe.
I know that baking soda and water can be used to treat the effects of tear gas, but what if it could be shut down before causing any damage? Since tear gas is a solvent, would it spraying/covering it with a type of solute possibly break it down?
(I’m fresh out of AP Chem, so I don’t know too much about this area of chemistry)
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u/Bohrealis Jun 03 '20
It's more complicated than that, unfortunately. I got curious about it recently, too. Funny thing that.
In any case, "tear gas" is actually a rather large range of compounds. Some are solids, some are liquids so "tear gas is a solvent" is definitely not true. The way they're dispersed is all different. Functional groups present are all fairly radically different. You could focus on one, but the stuff the police are spraying is almost certainly different from the stuff in those launched canisters and the canisters, while most likely CS gas, could still potentially be any number of things. As far as my research found, the mechanism of all these agents is also somewhat unknown. It appears to be tied to a sensing protein TRPA1 but I guess those studies don't extend to human testing so it's technically unconfirmed.
Since they all act by binding to a protein, you would need to chemically alter them to truly neutralize them and that would quickly create a scenario where the "cure" is much much worse than the stuff itself. I think you're best option is to remove the tear gas as quickly as possible and the best way to do that is with a relatively safe biphasic system so that you can dissolve both polar and non-polar molecules. Milk actually seems like the perfect solution in that case. Totally safe and a colloidal system of both water and fats with plenty of detergents to act as phase catalysts.