Question

What are the major constituents of acid rain?

Answer 1

Acid rain:

• When atmospheric pollutants like oxides of nitrogen and sulphur react with rainwater and come down with the rain, then this results in acid rain.
• Acid rain is made up of highly acidic water droplets due to air emissions, most specifically the disproportionate levels of sulphur and nitrogen emitted by vehicles.
• It is often called acid rain as this concept contains many types of acidic precipitation.
• Sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide undergo oxidation are the major constituents of acid rain, and then they react with water resulting in the formation of sulphuric acid and nitric acid, respectively.

The following reaction will clarify the acid formation reaction:

$$\begin{gathered} 2{\mathrm{SO}}_{2\left(\mathrm{g}\right)}+{\mathrm{O}}_{2\left(\mathrm{g}\right)}+2{\mathrm{H}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_{\left(\mathrm{l}\right)}\to 2{\mathrm{H}}_2{\mathrm{SO}}_{4\left(\mathrm{aq}\right)} \\ 4{\mathrm{NO}}_{2\left(\mathrm{g}\right)}+{\mathrm{O}}_{2\left(\mathrm{g}\right)}+2{\mathrm{H}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_{\left(\mathrm{l}\right)}\to 4{\mathrm{HNO}}_{3\left(\mathrm{aq}\right)} \end{gathered}$$