How can a piece of stainless steel remove fish odors from hands by rubbing under cold water?

Question

Cooks, fishermen and waiters handle smelly foods continulally so to remove these odors from their hands they rub stainless steel under running water and, Voila!, the odor goes away. How does this work? Is it chemical or just physical?

Answer 1

Courtesy of http://chemistry.allinfoabout.com/features/steelodor.html


" It makes sense to me that the sulfur from the onion/garlic would be attracted to and bind with one or more of the metals in stainless steel. Formation of such compounds is what makes stainless steel stainless, after all. Onions and garlic contain amino acid sulfoxides, which form propanethiol-S-Oxide (R-S(O)H), which reacts to produce sulfuric acid upon exposure to water. These compounds are responsible for burning your eyes while cutting onions and also for their characteristic scent. If the sulfur compounds bind to the steel, then the odor is removed from your fingers. It's possible that normal carbon steel would be even better at odor removal than stainless steel. However, steel doesn't work to remove high concentrations of sulfur compounds. "


Fish might contain some sort of compounds similar to the compounds in onions/garlic.

Answer 2

I didn't know fishermen did this but I learned a long time ago that to get a bad smell off you hands that you run the cold water and rub your hands on the faucet. It works.