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...to form the aluminum salt and hydrogen. 2Al(s) + 3H2SO4(aq) -> Al2(SO4)(aq) + 3H2(g)
And all of this means that the aluminium, theoretically, could dissolve in acid. But here’s the $64,000 question, how quickly? Well in the case presented in Dante’s Peak, not very. When our Hollywood Scientists did their experiment, they used a bowl of water, rocks and some of the chemicals one would find in a volcanic reaction. But lakes are very much bigger than bowls of water.
Let’s suppose our lake was 1 km square and 50 metres deep. This would amount to 50,000,000m3 or 50 x 109 litres.
To make the lake slightly acidic, e.g. pH6, you would need 10-6 mol c-1 of acid.
This means you need to add 50 x 109 x 10-6 moles of acid = 50,000 moles. Now one mole of sulphuric acid is 98g (we divide by 2) 50,000 x 98 divided by 2 = 2,500 kilograms of acid! To put that another way, you will need 50,000 x 22 divided by 2 litres of SO2 gas, which would need 550,000 litres of gas bubbling up - not very likely!
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