In the Mentos and Diet Coke experiment, Arnold was trying to prove that the Diet Coke would explode if he put The AFM rms roughness measurements are given in Table V. The SEM images of some of the samples are shown in Figs. What effect does temperature have on the height of the geyser? The color combined with the small size of the salt grains made it too difficult to see, and therefore difficult to determine the time of fall for the table salt. I must admit, however, that even with the Baby Soda Bottle method, the results were not very consistent. Because of this, the addition of Mentos candies to a carbonated beverage provides enormous numbers of pre-existing bubbles into which dissolved carbon dioxide can escape. (As discussed, part of the reason that the Wint-o-Green reaction took more time is due to the increased fall times.) The contestant ended up doing really well, going all the way to the $250,000 question; however, he walked away with $125,000. What evidence did the team find that the reaction between the Mentos and soda was a physical change? When the candy hits the bottom of the bottle, the gas is released and pushes the soda from the bottle up in the air in an amazing eruption! Mentos Geyser Experiment Mentos & Coke Experiment Children will enjoy this hilarious story and use their hands to mix up a batch of Instant Worms. [10] When the pressure is released from a soda bottle upon opening it, dissolved carbon dioxide can escape into any tiny bubble located within the beverage. And you may not have a friend for a day or two until they forgive you. This all boils down to the presence (or lack thereof) of sugar. Drop one Mentos candy into the first bottle and record the height by counting the wet bricks or by using your own scale. The other bottles were heated in a water bath on a hot plate for approximately 1020min. State briefly what you tried, what were your results, and what you might do differently next time. Kilauea, for example. Slight adjustments to the positioning of the spout on the bottle or small adjustments to the position of the bottle in the holder can cause the angle of the spray to change, which can affect the sprays range by several feet. We showed the importance of sample roughness by comparing SEM and AFM images of the samples to the explosive power of the reaction. WebFInally, the average height of the hot bottles' geysers was 19.5 inches and was the greatest. Thus, adding Mentos candies to a carbonated beverage introduces millions of nucleation sites into the drink, which allows for degassing that is rapid enough to support a jet of foam out of a bottle. The higher magnification images shown in Figs. Under these conditions, carbon dioxide begins to degas from the solution, forming gas bubbles. What is the science behind Coke and Mentos for kids? [20] In some cases, dissolved solids that increase the surface tension of water (such as sugars) also increase fountain heights. . Well, its probably not pretty. June 15, 2008 -- The startling reaction between Diet Coke and Mentos sweets, made famous in thousands of YouTube videos, finally has a scientific explanation. Carbon dioxide creates the bubbles in soda. What Will I Need For The Mentos And Coke Volcano? Diet Coke and Mentos Watch as they vanish right before your eyes in water as they grow. [17] This record was afterward beaten in November 2014 by another event organized by Perfetti Van Melle and Chupa Chups in Len, Guanajuato, Mexico, where 4,334 Mentos and soda fountains were set off simultaneously. Everyone found their own method for quickly dropping the Mentos into the soda. For the reaction between Diet Coke and the molecular sieve beads, the lower limit on the duration of this reaction was 12s, a much longer time than all of the other reactions. Record the temperature. This will work on any drink that is carbonated. The next few months were spent building trigger devices that ranged from plastic tubes with sliding doors and magnets that held metal stoppers in place to an elaborate battery-operated switch that was triggered by a motion detector. Hall, Jonathan Hearing, Leander Hutton, Kelly Izlar, Cully Little, James Lugenbell, Michael Mace, Bonnie Myers, Carla Penders, Zach Russell, Shane Shields, Adrian Steffen, Tony Sturtzel, and Zach Yokley. As mentioned earlier in the article, using either diet coke or regular coke alongside mentos can produce a spewing geyser of carbonation bubbles. In a sealed bottle of soda pop, the gas above the liquid in the bottle has a high partial pressure of carbon dioxide compared to the air we breathe. Today Room 1 and 5 did a science experiment together. Adding salt to soda also causes it to foam because thousands of little bubbles form on the surface of each grain of salt. ", "MythBusters: Diet Coke and Mentos MiniMyth", "Toying with the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment", "How Many Bubbles Are in the Foam Produced during the Candy-Cola Soda Geyser? This procedure prevented the explosion of the bottle during heating, but the early release of some of the carbon dioxide gas may have caused these reactions to be less explosive than the cold or room temperature trials. ERIC - EJ1240905 - Kinetic Modeling of and Effect of Candy I also posted the video on a new online video-sharing site called YouTube (YouTube was only seven months old at that time). Mentos and Diet Coke experiment works with any soda In conclusion the hypothesis that the diet coke will have the greatest explosion because of the high level of CO2 gas contained in it was correct. 2.) Diet Coke and Mentos: What is really behind this physical reaction Most importantly, the author would like to thank the students of PHY2210 for their hard work and great ideas, including Will Beuttell, Jason Burch, Blake Clark, Robert Duke, Jama Greene, A.J. The demo went from relative obscurity to an internet sensation! Thats my final answer.. Stir up some enthusiasm for experimentation with this candy-cracking science experiment! This conclusion is supported by our contact angle measurements showing a reduced contact angle for aspartame and water in contrast to pure water or sugar water (see Table IV). You might need to put down something flat, like a small piece of wood, to hold it up. The seltzer and tonic water were not Coca-Cola products, and it was not possible to find seltzer and tonic water with the same expiration date as the Coke products. What is the independent variable in the Mentos experiment? Science Fair Project: The Diet Coke and Mentos Explosion students used this simple device to monitor the kinetics of foam production in the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment and to draw conclusions about the system. The Diet Coke and Mentos reaction is a popular experiment or demonstration in part because it inspires students to wonder, and inquiry-driven labs and active-learning demonstrations on this reaction have been implemented.3 I recently led a large group of undergraduate physics students in a cooperative research project to answer some of the debate on this reaction. http://www.eepybird.com/featured-video/coke-and-mentos-featured-video/science-of-coke-mentos/. Science teachers started experimenting (as they like to do) with other candies and mints that would have the same effect when dropped into a bottle of soda. Regular Coke does not work with Mentos because the Diet Coke uses Aspartame instead of sugar, which regular Coke uses. Grobe, F., & Voltz, S. The Science of Coke and Mentos. Mixing Coke and Mentos looks like a chemical change, but since the gas released is carbon dioxide AND it was present before the foaming happened, it is actually a physical change. In fact, its not really a reaction at all or at least its a physical reaction rather than a chemical one. To the naked eye, Fruit Mentos are shinier than Mint Mentos, and therefore should be smoother. If spectators were watching your exploits, someone is bound to yell out, Do it again! Thats exactly what youre going to do. Before you get started, youll need to find a location suitable for the experiment. What is a good hypothesis for Mentos and Diet Coke? Youll need a thermometer to record the temperature of the soda just before you launch it so that your data are accurate. Since diet sodas lack the sugar that regular ones do, it has lower viscosity and surface tension. On a 100m2 scale, the Wint-o-Green Lifesavers have a rms roughness that is more than a factor of 10 larger than the rms roughness of the rock salt. WebWhen Mentos candies are dropped into a bottle of Diet Coke, a foamy fountain jets out of the beverage container. The answer is a process called nucleation (Grobe & Voltz, n.d.). and Mentos Experiment All of the samples were at room temperature unless otherwise indicated. The author would like to thank the Dewel Microscopy Facility for their donation of the time on the SEM. Today, all of that will be answered in our article down below! The goal is to drop all seven Mentos into the bottle of soda at the same time, which is trickier than you might think. Superabsorbent giant growing polymer beads that absorb 150 times their weight in water! As long as there is a high surface area to volume ratio, that area can be classified as a nucleation site (Grobe & Voltz, n.d.). In the Mythbusters episode1 a Mint Mentos and a brightly colored Mentos were dropped into Diet Coke, and although the Mint Mentos caused the expected eruption, the brightly colored Mentos did almost nothing. How many protons and electrons are present in Ba2+? Toll Free: 800-223-9080 Compare the contact angle results in Table V for pure water (=85), sugar water (=80), and aspartame dissolved in water (=77). We used the measured contact angle to calculate the minimum work required to form a critical bubble5 by the relation: where LV is the liquid-vapor surface tension, PP is the pressure difference across the interface, is the contact angle, and the function f() is given by. Once your Mentos are lined up and ready to drop, its time for the fun to begin.