[Montegue]

I did experiment with gypsum added to urine. The urea supposed to breakdown into ammonia and ionize into ammonium and react with gypsum to give ammonium sulfate. I didn't do any measuring or weighing, so there could be insufficient gypsum added. A week later when I opened the jar, it smelled like rotten fish. Could anyone tell me the chain reaction from urea to trimethylamide?

[Arkcon]

How are you excluding microbial contamination from the possibilities of what's happened?

[Montegue]

I did not exclude the possibility of microbial contamination. I wanted to know how bacteria synthesizing the product. Obviously, some bacteria have to ferment something to get methanol; then other group of bacteria breakdown the urea and release ammonia. Then combined the two to form trimethylamide. These are just my speculation. Since it's a biochemical process, there must be lots of different enzymes involved. Please show me the pathway if you know.