Scientist from Altai State University Elena Ilyina told whether acid rain should be expected in Altai Krai

Elena Ilyina, an associate professor of the Department of Physical and Inorganic Chemistry, told about the causes of acid rain, methods for preventing it and the risks of encountering this dangerous natural phenomenon.

“The fact is that in addition to the main components - nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide - the atmosphere contains oxides of sulfur and nitrogen. They get there most often due to anthropogenic impact,” explains the associate professor. “There is also water in the atmosphere. Interacting with water, these oxides form sulfuric and nitric acids. And sooner or later they fall to the ground as part of rain, snow or hail.

Acid rain is highly toxic. Because of this, the level of acidity (pH) changes in the media, and organisms that are accustomed to a different acidity may die. When the pH of natural water or soil changes, heavy metals pass into a soluble form, while their concentration increases and reaches values that are dangerous for living organisms.

Contact with the skin causes burns. And inhaling its vapors, you can aggravate or get respiratory diseases, such as asthma. Thus, if the rain causes redness or burning of the skin, you need to hide from it as soon as possible and take a shower if possible. Acid rain can even destroy concrete or metal structures.

According to Elena Ilyina, there have been no acid rains in Altai Krai recently. However, this cannot give one hundred percent guarantees, since this phenomenon is found everywhere.

“In fact, there is no such place on Earth now, the atmosphere above which would be environmentally friendly,” the chemist summed up. “Basically, of course, the risks are high in regions with developed industry and a large amount of emissions into the environment.”

Information about acid rain first appeared in 1872. But people realized the real danger of nature pollution only in the middle of the 20th century. Since then, methods for the development of environmentally friendly production have been actively developed.

"Reasonable use of mineral fertilizers in agriculture is being introduced. Before calculating their amount, a soil analysis is performed. They didn't do that before. New production technologies and technologies for cleaning emissions into the atmosphere are being developed. In the energy sector, the process of burning coal (in which sulfur oxide was released into the atmosphere) is replaced by burning natural gas."