Diet Coke And Mentos Why

One roll of mentos candies a two liter bottle of diet soda diet soda makes for a much better reaction but you can use regular soda if you like.

Diet coke and mentos why. In the diet coke bottle the mentos candy provides a rough surface that allows the bonds between the carbon dioxide gas and water to break more easily helping to create carbon dioxide bubbles. 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. There is an urban legend that eating mentos while drinking soda could cause a person s stomach to burst.

You can also increase the effect by adding more surfactants to the soda before you add the mentos like adding a mixture of dishwasher soap and water. Any carbonated beverage works the trick works with any carbonated beverage. Lee marek and marek s kid scientists were the first to publicly demonstrate the experiment on the late show with david letterman in 1999.

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. It just won t be nearly as awesome a tube the width of the mentos. As to why diet sodas like diet coke produce such a bigger reaction it s because aspartame lowers the surface tension of the liquid much more than sugar or corn syrup will.

No one has worked out why. Steve spangler s televised demonstration of the eruption. You can also increase the effect by.

It works with regular cola orange soda root beer etc. 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. When all of this gas is released it forces the liquid up and out of the bottle in a giant whooshing geyser of sticky soda.

Theories abound as to why this happens. Usually the trick is done using diet soda especially diet coke or another cola however the main reason for this is because diet drinks are less sticky easier to clean up than other sodas. The engineer explains that the yellow nose cap is full of mentos while the body is full of pressurized diet coke.