The Effects of Acid Rain on the Visible Light Absorption of Stained Glass
In this experiment, the researchers set out to determine what effect acid rain had on stained glass, which is in many historic churches in Europe and across the world. Today with the increase in acid rain and its effects on our daily life, a large part of this problem is acid rain’s damaging effects on stained glass. An experiment was design to test these effects. To conduct the experiment, the researches cut out pieces of stained glass and soaked them in different molarity solutions of sulfuric and nitric acid. A group of beakers wide enough to fit each stained glass piece and a stand system holding the light sensor in a fixed position were successfully assembled. After two weeks of periodically measuring the light absorption of the glass, the results were analyzed using a two-sample t-test. The effects of the sulfuric acid and the nitric acid were analyzed, and the t-test yielded a t-value of 0.155, which corresponded to a P-value of 0.877. This means that there was no significant difference between glass treated with sulfuric acid and glass treated with nitric acid.
Research Conducted By:
Austin Hauer
Sterling Heights High School
Andrew Niedbala
Sterling Heights High School
Warren Consolidated Schools