Diet Coke And Mentos: What Is Really Behind This Physical Reaction?
Diet Coke and Mentos: What is really behind this physical reaction?
Tonya Coffey
*Published in the American Journal of Physics, June 2008
In case you hadn’t heard… Diet Coke and Mentos is a major fad!
Subject of countless YouTube videos
1st shown on the Letterman show in 1999 by chemistry teacher Lee Marek
Subject of a 2006 episode of Mythbusters
Why on earth do I care so much about Mentos?
Originally to give my PHY2210 students the experience of participating in a real research project, not a canned lab.
But I admit the project exploded beyond my original vision…
Bubble Theory: Why do sodas fizz when you open them?
We like our drinks nice and fizzy. Thanks, Henry’s Law!
P=Kc
Here P is partial pressure of gas above …show more content…
We also constructed a tube to fit over the mouth of the bottle and a delivery mechanism for the solid materials to maintain consistency in our results. • We measured the mass of the bottle using a double pan balance before and after the reaction to determine the mass lost in the reaction. We measured the horizontal distance traveled by the soda’s spray using marker flags and video. Also using video, we acquired time duration of reaction.
One of those other factors: Temperature!
• For temperature dependent trials we refrigerated a Diet Coke bottle for several hour prior to the experiment. • Other bottles were heated in a water bath on a hot plate for approximately 1020 minutes. To prevent explosion of the bottles during heating, the heated bottles were opened to release some of the internal pressure, then closed again. • This may have caused some systematic error as compared to the room temperature trials. • Soda temperature was measured with mercury thermometer immediately prior to reaction.
Temperature Matters!
1460 1440 1420 1400 1380 1360 1340 1320 1300 1280 1260 0 20 40 60 Temperature
Tonya Coffey
*Published in the American Journal of Physics, June 2008
In case you hadn’t heard… Diet Coke and Mentos is a major fad!
Subject of countless YouTube videos
1st shown on the Letterman show in 1999 by chemistry teacher Lee Marek
Subject of a 2006 episode of Mythbusters
Why on earth do I care so much about Mentos?
Originally to give my PHY2210 students the experience of participating in a real research project, not a canned lab.
But I admit the project exploded beyond my original vision…
Bubble Theory: Why do sodas fizz when you open them?
We like our drinks nice and fizzy. Thanks, Henry’s Law!
P=Kc
Here P is partial pressure of gas above …show more content…
We also constructed a tube to fit over the mouth of the bottle and a delivery mechanism for the solid materials to maintain consistency in our results. • We measured the mass of the bottle using a double pan balance before and after the reaction to determine the mass lost in the reaction. We measured the horizontal distance traveled by the soda’s spray using marker flags and video. Also using video, we acquired time duration of reaction.
One of those other factors: Temperature!
• For temperature dependent trials we refrigerated a Diet Coke bottle for several hour prior to the experiment. • Other bottles were heated in a water bath on a hot plate for approximately 1020 minutes. To prevent explosion of the bottles during heating, the heated bottles were opened to release some of the internal pressure, then closed again. • This may have caused some systematic error as compared to the room temperature trials. • Soda temperature was measured with mercury thermometer immediately prior to reaction.
Temperature Matters!
1460 1440 1420 1400 1380 1360 1340 1320 1300 1280 1260 0 20 40 60 Temperature