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Asked by Monkey2004 to Anais, katy, Lauren, Richard, Stuart on 15 Mar 2016.
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Lauren Laing answered on 15 Mar 2016:
Hi, Do you mean when it is spilt? This depends on the surface. Usually acids are liquid, I have accidentally spilt an acid before, on a metal surface it starts to react and corrode, but on plastic is will just spread in the same way water would, but not react. Once I also got a very small spec of acid on my jeans! I took them off and changed, when I took my jeans out of my bag later, there was a whole about the side of a 10 pence piece, where the acid had spread and corroded my jeans! This took a few hours, but it would depend on the acid concentration, luckily this acid wasn’t very concentrated, so it didn’t go straight through my jeans and burn me!
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Stuart Atkinson answered on 15 Mar 2016:
Depend where it was spilled. If a tanker crashed on the motorway and it leaked acid into a river, it could be carried for a long distance, killing wildlife on the way, before it was dilute enough to be safe.
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Anais Kahve answered on 15 Mar 2016:
Like the other scientists have said, it depends on where the acid is. If it’s spilled in a river then it might spread faster and further than if it were spilled on a hard surface like a road.
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Richard Friend answered on 15 Mar 2016:
In addition to what everyone else has said, acids can spread really quickly especially when you don’t want then to! There’s one called hydrofluoric acid which is calcium seeking. If you get it on your skin it will go straight through to your bones (where there’s a lot of calcium) and start attacking your bones. If that happens you have to put a calcium rich jelly on your skin to stop that happening. Scary stuff.
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