Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am studying the effect of acid rain on elodea using vinegar as the acid. I know vinegar has a pH around 2. I was going to dilute vinegar and test at 10%, 1% and 0.1% solutions. How do I determine the pH of these solutions? Would you recommend a different dilution to better test the effect of acid rain?

Hello Hartl,

I think the diluted vinegar solutions you've listed will work well. My suggestion is to use pH test strips to determine the pH of your solutions. The pH test strips shown at the following link should work.

http://www.carolina.com/ph-test-papers/ ... scibuddies


I hope this helps. Please post again if you have more questions

A. Norman

You might find the EPA site (http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/education/experiments.html) a useful part of your research on acid rain, and this experiment in particular (http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/education/experiment7.html). They suggest you shoot for a pH of 4 which they say you can get with a teaspoonful of vinegar in 2 cups of water. That's a 1/49, or roughly 2% vinegar solution. Your 10% is going to be quite strong but your 1% is right in the ballpark.

If you haven't settle on a method yet, maybe you can borrow some of this experiment's method. Good luck with your experiment.

Howard