Diet Coke And Mentos What Is Really Behind This Physical Reaction

The reaction has been performed numerous times on television and the internet but has not been systematically studied.

Diet coke and mentos what is really behind this physical reaction. The chemical reaction between the mentos and diet coke reduce the surface tension on the top of the water allowing the gas created through nucleation to waste less energy breaking the surface tension as it dispels the soda out the mouth of the bottle in what is observed as the fountain or geyser. 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. 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.

But the amazing eruption that takes. Depending upon the number of mentos dropped into the bottle the spray height can vary between a few inches and tens of feet. Diet coke and mentos.

It may be said that these two concepts work together to result in the over 1 meter fountain of soda in this nostalgia inspiring experiment. What is really behind this physical reaction. Steve spangler s televised demonstration of the eruption.

For the mentos diet coke reaction the carbonic acid and carbon dioxide are not products. 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. When mint or fruit mentos are dropped into a fresh bottle of diet coke a jet of coke whooshes out of the bottle s mouth and can reach a height of 10 metres.

Theories abound as to why this happens. Lee marek and marek s kid scientists were the first to publicly demonstrate the experiment on the late show with david letterman in 1999. You might think that there is some ingredient in a mentos candy that causes a chemical reaction with the soda pop like the way baking soda reacts with vinegar.

Diet sodas produce a bigger reaction than non diet sodas because aspartame lowers the surface tension of the liquid much more than sugar or corn syrup will. You can also increase the effect by. 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.