Cinnabar (HgS) is a brick-red colored sulfide of mercury. It has been traditionally used to prepare vermilion, a coloring pigment. A cinnabar-coated statue rests in the Narayan Mandir of Karachi's old city Narainpura. Suppose that the statue has 500 mg of cinnabar on it and is exposed to acidic rain and other atmospheric phenomena. The statue is washed in acid rain and the water has a pH of 4.50. How many years will it take for all of the cinnabar to get removed from the statue? On average, it rains 40 days a year in Karachi. Assume that 500 L of water passes over the statue in a single rain and the water gets saturated with HgS. Does the calculated number look reasonable, given that it doesn't rain much in Karachi? What other factors, in addition to acidic rain, might contribute to the loss of the pigment from the statue?
Cinnabar (HgS) is a brick-red colored sulfide of mercury. It has been traditionally used to prepare vermilion, a coloring pigment. A cinnabar-coated statue rests in the Narayan Mandir of Karachi's old city Narainpura. Suppose that the statue has 500 mg of cinnabar on it and is exposed to acidic rain and other atmospheric phenomena. The statue is washed in acid rain and the water has a pH of 4.50. How many years will it take for all of the cinnabar to get removed from the statue? On average, it rains 40 days a year in Karachi. Assume that 500 L of water passes over the statue in a single rain and the water gets saturated with HgS. Does the calculated number look reasonable, given that it doesn't rain much in Karachi? What other factors, in addition to acidic rain, might contribute to the loss of the pigment from the statue?