Improvised Acid Rain.. HELP!

[NoltaiR]

Alright I have gotten caught up in posting all evening and I am running out of time that I should have spent on my science fair project. Anyways what I signed up to do, was an experiment on the effects of acid rain from different places on the 'enviroment' (which is just going to be some plants in my case).

What I needed to know is if any of you knew anything about making acid rain. In the atmosphere I know that most of the acidity is caused by SO2 in the air combining with the water in the clouds which produces a weak form of sulfuric acid. But it also tends to mix with other carbon fuels to make the water stagnate when it collects in pools on the ground and evaporates.

Basically are there anyways I can make a set-up where I can burn different things and then somehow suck up the smoke and then mix it with water.

All suggestions are appreciated!

[NoltaiR]

(or maybe I could just cheat and just dilute some H2SO4 and then mix it with different hydrocarbon fuels like gasoline, motor oil, etc.)

Edit: I just found an article on encyclopedia.com that at least sets me in the right direction.

acid rain
or acid deposition, form of precipitation (rain, snow, sleet, or hail) containing high levels of sulfuric or nitric acids (pH below 5.5-5.6). Produced when sulfur dioxide and various nitrogen oxides combine with atmospheric moisture, acid ran can contaminate drinking water, damage vegetation and aquatic life, and erode buildings and monuments. Automobile exhausts and the burning of high-sulfur industrial fuels are thought to be the main causes, but natural sources, such as volcanic gases and forest fires, may also be significant. It has been an increasingly serious problem since the 1950s, particularly in the NE United States, Canada, and W Europe, especially Scandinavia.
Acid rain became a political issue in the 1980s, when Canada claimed that pollutants from the United States were contaminating its forests and waters. Since then regulations have been enacted in North America and Europe to curb sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants; these include the U.S. Clean Air Act (as reauthorized and expanded in 1990) and the Helsinki protocol (1985), in which 21 European nations promised to reduce emissions by specified amounts. To assess the effectiveness of reductions a comprehensive study, comparing data from lakes and rivers across N Europe and North America, was conducted by an international team of scientists in 1999. The results they reported were mixed: while sulfates (the main acidifying water pollutant from acid rain) were lower, only some areas showed a decrease in overall acidity. It remained to be determined whether more time or a greater reduction in sulfur emissions was needed to reduce freshwater acidity in all areas.

<small>[ March 11, 2002, 10:18 PM: Message edited by: NoltaiR ]</small>

[CyclonitePyro]

I don't know where I heard this but I thought water falling absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere and turns into weak carbonic acid.

O yeah, this makes sense because acid rain is a relatively new problem, and so is the problem of a inreasing CO2 level of the atmosphere(global warming).

<small>[ March 12, 2002, 04:15 PM: Message edited by: CyclonitePyro ]</small>

[kingspaz]

ok, to make sulphur dioxide take some sulphur powder and light it. ok, imagine a 2l plastioc coke bottle, chop it in half and unscrew the lid and replace with a tube. you now have a funneling device. at the other end of the tube you need a fan blowing at a right angle across the tube opening. this should create enough of a vacuum to suck SO2 down the tube. not sure what u can do from there.....use your imagination, you know what you need!
to make nitrous oxides, heat KNO3 in a pan or somthing and keep heating until it decomposes. collect in a similar way. not sure if enough of a vacuum would be created but it should work.

speaking of nitrous oxides, NO and NO2 are radicals. but they can be collected like ordinary gases and don't terminate with each other. anybody know why?

[vulture]

The sulfuric acid in the atmosphere is formed by oxidation of SO2 to SO3 by water. It takes place way up in the stratosphere where the water gets separated into radical O en 2H atoms.
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">
NO and NO2 are radicals. but they can be collected like ordinary gases and don't terminate with each other.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">I'm not sure what you mean with this.
However, NO gets immediatly oxidized to NO2 in contact with oxygen.
Also, NO2 is in equilibrum with N2O4.
2NO2 = N2O4
At low temperature the reaction goes from left to right, at higher temperature it's the other way round.

NO and NO2 are, contrary to SO2, energetic molecules. They have a positive reaction enthalpy, that is they absorb energy upon formation. This also explains why NO2 is an oxidizer and SO2 is not.

The nitrous oxides in car exhaust gas originate from N2 gas that get's oxidized in the engine due to the high combustion temperature.
This is cause there is a triple bond between the N atoms in N2.

[kingspaz]

hehe, actually the NOx gasses from cars are formed only in PETROL engines due to the sparkplug sparking <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

[vulture]

You'll also find them in exhaust gas of diesel oil engines, because it contains nitrates to control burn temperature and more impurities than petrol. Diesel exhaust gas also contains more soot, unoxidized hydrocarbons and SO2.

I always thought i was because of the high combustion temperature...