American Journal Of Physics Diet Coke And Mentos
Baking soda to diet coke.
American journal of physics diet coke and mentos. A diet coke and mentos eruption is a reaction between the carbonated beverage diet coke and mentos mints that causes the beverage to spray out of its container. Physicists have finally determined the cause of the soda eruption resulting from the introduction of a mentos mint. For the mentos diet coke reaction the carbonic acid and carbon dioxide are not products.
The reaction has been performed numerous times on television and the internet but has not been systematically studied. Issues are published 12 times per year. The popular diet coke and mentos reaction occurs when new mentos are dropped into a fresh bottle of diet coke and results in a jet of diet coke spray shooting out of the mouth of the bottle.
6 1 the classic baking soda and vinegar acid base reaction produces unstable carbonic acid that rapidly decomposes into water and carbon dioxide which escapes as a gas. The american journal of physics is a publication of the american association of physics teachers aapt. The diet coke and mentos reaction is a fun demonstration in chemistry and physics classes of many important concepts in thermodynamics fluid dynamics surface science and the physics of explosions.
Steve spangler s televised demonstration of the eruption. A study in the us has identified the prime factors that. Depending upon the number of mentos dropped into the bottle the spray height can vary between a few inches and tens of feet.
They mixed diet coke and fruit mentos diet coke and wint o green lifesavers diet coke and rock salt and a dozen other combinations. The rough surface of the mint tablet encourages the fast formation of carbon. Lee marek and marek s kid scientists were the first to publicly demonstrate the experiment on the late show with david letterman in 1999.
The candies catalyze the release of gas from the beverage which creates an eruption that pushes most of the liquid up and out of the bottle. The startling reaction between diet coke and mentos sweets made famous in thousands of youtube videos finally has a scientific explanation.