Question

How does a scrubber help in reducing the formation of acid rain?

Answer 1

Hint: We know that the scrubbers are used to remove particulate matter and harmful components such as nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide generated from the engines as a result of combustion. These scrubbers’ help in reducing pollution in the environment and then filter out the harmful components.

Complete answer:
It is known to you that acid rain is caused by emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, which react with water molecules in the atmosphere to produce acids. The formation of acid rain is due to natural sources such as bacterial action or volcanic eruptions or due to human activities mainly involving combustion of fuels like coal, wood, petroleum products, etc. Scrubbers are connected to the streams of exhaust which cleans the dirty gases and components and releases the clean gas. Scrubbers are of two types: Wet Scrubber and Dry Scrubber. The wet scrubber uses liquid such as Water. This water is allowed to flow within the dirty gases and all the effluents then get collected in the water and form an emulsion. In the dry scrubber, we use a dry reagent to filter the dirty gas. The dirty gases include the sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide which if released in unfiltered form into the atmosphere is harmful. The scrubber used in the exhaust of chemical industries is meant only to remove harmful components from the gas, so it doesn’t filter out the particulate matter.
The impact of acid precipitation is often reduced by checking the foundation reason for acid precipitation, i.e. bicv, reducing the emission of oxides of sulphur and chemical elements. This may be done by exploiting coal or oil with low sulphur content. We will additionally scale back such emissions by employing a scrubber, a tool that absorbs evaporated pollutants. A scrubber used for removing sulfur dioxide from a smoke stack typically consists of a downfall of water and gas rising from the -stack, that is competent the scrubber, once water absorbs sulfur dioxide. Therefore the formation of this constituent of acid precipitation is reduced.

Additional Information:
Also, the main chemicals in air pollution that creates acid rain are oxides of nitrogen and those of sulphur. Acid rain usually forms high in the clouds where oxides of nitrogen and sulphur react with water, oxygen and oxidants to form a mild solution of nitric acid and sulphuric acid. The main contributor of acid rain is sulphuric acid, next is nitric acid and least is hydrochloric acid. Acid rain increases the acidity of water in the lakes which is lethal for the fishes. For this reason, some of the lakes have become fishless. scrubbers, on ships as an alternative to switching to cleaner low-sulphur fuel, has been a seriously debated issue since the global ship fuel sulphur regulations were brought to control by the International Maritime.

Note:
Remember that the removal potency of pollutants is improved by increasing continuance time within the scrubber or by the rise of the surface area of the scrubber solution by the utilization of a twig nozzle, packed towers or an aspirator. Scrubbers can also be used for heat recovery from hot gases by flue-gas condensation. They are additionally used for the high flows in solar, etc.