
What Causes the Smell of New and Old Books? - homarp
https://www.compoundchem.com/2014/06/01/newoldbooksmell/
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mallomarmeasle
Interesting. The furfural comes from cellulose degradation I assume. And the
vanillin must come from lignin. The toluene and ethylbenzene are outgassing
from old adhesive? Benzaldehyde could come from air oxidation of the toluene.
Not sure about the 2-ethyl-hexanol, but man I used to love the faint floral
odor of mixed hexanes!

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derefr
It occurs to me that other things, more recently invented, will have
interesting chemical-degradation smells as they age as well, that nobody has
yet experienced because none of it is that old yet. E.g.:

• What does paper that was printed on by a laser printer a long time ago smell
like?

• What does the ink from those Frixion pens smell like if you open a notebook
written in by one after 100 years?

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bookofjoe
"A physical book is made up of organic matter that reacts with heat, light,
moisture, and most importantly of all, the chemicals used in its production.
And it is this unique reaction that causes the unique used books smell.... Old
books release hundreds of volatile organic compounds into the air from the
paper, and it is this which gives books their scent, a combination of grassy
notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying
mustiness." [https://youtu.be/aUaInTfrDnA](https://youtu.be/aUaInTfrDnA)

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Udik
> grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla

Soon available as a perfume to spray on your kindle. In a shop near you.

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captn3m0
I would pay for this.

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etcet
Demeter make a bunch of "fun" fragrances including "paperback":
[https://demeterfragrance.com/paperback.html](https://demeterfragrance.com/paperback.html)

I like their "dirt".

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meruru
I suppose this a good chance to ask: is it a good idea to try to keep old and
browned books isolated from new ones? I imagine a cause of degradation is
bacteria, so I worry that keeping them together will cause cross-contamination
and accelerate the degradation process of new books.

Also, what other things can I do to preserve both old and new books? I
sometimes clean them with alcohol which I'm not sure is a good idea. I also
wrap some of them with plastic.

I tried to search the web for answers to these kinds of questions, but most
results weren't very good. If there's a good place to look up/ask that sort of
thing I'd like to know.

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kijin
OP doesn't mention bacteria, only a gradual breakdown of paper and ink
components. Bacteria might play a role in the breakdown, but I'm guessing that
most of it is just a reaction with oxygen and moisture in the air. That is,
unless the books are so damp that they literally rot away.

Chemicals can "infect" nearby objects, though, just like airborne bacteria.
It's a well-known fact that the gas that comes out of a ripening apple causes
nearby apples to ripen more quickly. Maybe a similar reaction can happen to
books, especially if the breakdown products cause a change in acidity.

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vokep
I imagine this is where the phrase "one bad apple ruins the whole batch" but
it sounds like in practice, a good apple can also help get the whole batch
ready, all the while getting old and tired. Not sure if there is any wisdom in
that but it feels like it could have some. Something about teaching and
getting old doing so?

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snazz
My old English teacher used to quip that the better the book smells, the worse
the book is. I imagine that much of the old book smell (at least in a school
library) comes from the many fingers that have thumbed through the book. Then
again, old books in pristine condition still exude the “old book smell” (I got
a 1970s-era book on compilers from the library for free in perfect condition
that still smells “old”).

I’m impressed that they were able to figure out specific compounds. How would
you even get started figuring out which compounds are coming from a book?

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leereeves
> How would you even get started figuring out which compounds are coming from
> a book?

I'm not a chemist, and this is just a guess, but perhaps by placing the book
in a vacuum, waiting for it to outgas a bit, then analyzing the resulting
"air".

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mallomarmeasle
Yes, something along these lines. Its called "headspace' analysis. The
volatile components that come off are typically checked with GC/MS.

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Thermolabile
"Error establishing a database connection"

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snazz
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.compoundchem.com/2014/06/01/newoldbooksmell/)

[http://web.archive.org/web/20190304130113/https://www.compou...](http://web.archive.org/web/20190304130113/https://www.compoundchem.com/2014/06/01/newoldbooksmell/)

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alexheikel
Bad rquest

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pmoriarty
_" As with all aromas, the origins can be traced back to a number of chemical
constituents, so we can examine the processes and compounds that can
contribute to both."_

There's also the hard question of why something smells a particular way to
you. This is a question arguably beyond chemistry, and (more contentiously)
perhaps even beyond biology.

It's like why something that has the color red appears as red to you, while
the same object might appear as blue to someone else, but since you're both
referring to the same thing and using the same words for it, you normally
assume you're having the same experience but there's really no way to know
that you are. There's no way to inspect anyone else's experience to see if it
matches your own (and even if you could, those would still be your experiences
of their experiences).

With that in mind, one could ask why the smell of a rose (or of whatever
chemicals make up that smell) smell the way they do (ie. why you experience
them as you do). It's difficult to see how an answer based in biology or
chemistry could ever answer that question.

