Why do mentos explode in soda

At atmospheric pressure about 15 psi , only a small amount of CO 2 will dissolve into Coke. If you want more gas to dissolve, then you have to increase the pressure of the CO 2 until it is, say, two or three times atmospheric pressure. When you open the Coke container, the pressure is reduced to 15 psi , and the CO 2 immediately begins to leave the Coke.

That release can happen at the surface of the liquid, or, the CO 2 can form bubbles that will rise to the top of the liquid and escape. To understand how energy is involved, open two cans of soda side by side; one that is cold from your refrigerator, and one that is warm. The warm one will release bubbles of CO 2 much faster, because a warm gas is more energetic. Whether the soda is warm or cold, the process of forming bubbles occurs slowly. However, if there are sharp edges or fine particles in the liquid, these have surfaces that allow the CO 2 molecules to start bubble formation more easily these are called nucleation points.

Mentos tablets contain thousands of these nucleation points and when dropped into Coke, they allow the bubbles to form almost instantaneously. To understand how the surface of the Mento causes the CO 2 bubbles to nucleate, think about how rock candy is made. A string or a stick is immersed into a supersaturated mixture of sugar and water, and crystals of sugar nucleate around the stick.

Without immersing the stick, the crystals will grow eventually, but the stick speeds up the process by providing a surface for nucleation. There is a pretty cool thing you can do with a bottle of soda pop and a packet of Mentos.

Wrap the paper around the pack of Mentos to make a tube. Use masking tape to tape the tube closed. Remove the pack of Mentos from the tube. Close off one end of the tube by cutting a little circle or square of paper and taping it to one end of the tube. Put the open end of your tube of Mentos on the card and place it directly over the opening of the soda bottle.

When you are ready, remove the card and let all the Mentos drop into the soda at once and quickly move out of the way. The carbon dioxide molecules attach to the surfaces of the Mentos like they did in the cup of soda. All those Mentos in a lot of soda make a lot of bubbles that rise to the surface and push the soda out in a big woosh!

Mentos and Diet Coke! Have you ever noticed that when you put a straw in soda pop, the straw gets a lot of bubbles on it? Why does that happen? Low surface tension also helps bubbles grow quickly. Measurements showed that the surface tension in water containing the sweetener aspartame is lower than in sugary water, explaining why Diet Coke creates more dramatic fountains than sugary Coke.

Another factor is that the coatings of Mentos contain gum arabic, a surfactant that further reduces surface tension in the liquid. Rough-surfaced mints without the surfactant did not create such large fountains. Mentos are also fairly dense and sink rapidly, quickly creating bubbles that seed further bubbles as they rise. Crushed Mentos that fell more slowly created puny fountains that only travelled about 30 centimetres. Trending Latest Video Free.