Why does the sea breeze smell?

As long as we come to the seaside, we can almost smell the fishy smell floating from the sea. Why is this?

In fact, the reason why the sea breeze smells fishy is all because of dimethyl sulfide.

Dimethyl sulfide is the simplest sulfide, and its structure and properties are similar to those of dimethyl ether, but dimethyl ether has two methyl groups linked by oxygen, while dimethyl sulfide has two methyl groups linked by sulfur. Dimethyl sulfide is a colorless and volatile liquid at room temperature, which is often produced by protein decomposition in nature and has a special smell similar to seafood.

Dimethyl sulfur is the main volatile sulfide emitted from the ocean, accounting for about 95% of the marine sulfur emissions. Dimethyl sulfur is the most important volatile sulfide, accounting for about 50% of natural sulfur emission sources in the atmosphere.

Dimethyl sulfide is first obtained by assimilating sulfate from seaweed, and the precursor of dimethyl sulfide-propyl dimethyl sulfonate is synthesized in vivo. Different algae have different effects on this process, such as light, nutrition, salinity and water temperature. After that, propyl dimethyl sulfonate will degrade to produce dimethyl sulfide.

Once dimethyl sulfide is produced in seawater, it will be affected in various ways.