| MadSci Network: Chemistry |
Wendell,
I am not sure how elaborate you wish to get with this project so I will give you the simplest and probably most effective answer. Building a crude gas chromatograph would not be the easiest of projects to do. making the column to separate chemicals is not that hard but a detectors would be fairly complicated. But I woould suggest the following as a suggestion. Get some stainless steel tubing or a glass tube, and pack it full of lime, calcium carbonate, pack both ends with cotton to keep the lime inside. The detector could be something along the lines of wet pH paper or, more desirable, a phenothalein solution that will turn red when acid is present. What you would do would be to introduce a sample of polluted air, that is air that contains either sulfur dioxide or carbon dioxide, into one end of the column/tube through a sealed tube attached to one end. Take another tube and attach it to the other end and allow this tube to bubble through the phenothalein solution ot pass across some wet litmus paper. You know the pH of the gas entering the tube is acidic, so the phenothalein solution or pH paper should remain neutral or turn blue when the lime is working. If the solution/pH paper turns red, then the flow rate of gas is too high and not removing the acid gases or the lime is spent and needs to be replaced. If this doesn't suit your needs, let me know, and I will come up with another idea.
Carlin Gregory
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