2006-07-26 14:04:43 · 3 answers · asked by mom1025 5 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Chemistry
Depends on how quickly you open it. There is abit of urban/historical legend hiding here (everybody "knows" that soda explodes...). When I was a kid, this was pretty true; meaning, if you shook a soda up, you might have to wait up to 20 minutes for it "settle down". This isn't (mostly) true today.
The headspace (air bubble) in the new (well, probably in the last 10 years or more) cans is different (smaller) than in the old. This means that when you shake the can, there is less foam formed.
The foam acts as nucleation sites ("seeds", if you like) for the supersaturated CO2 gas (which causes the "normal" fizz bubbles when it slowly escapes from the sugar-water-flavor concoction known as soda pop). With all the extra nucleation sites, when you pop the top, the CO2 "explodes" out (or more quickly bubbles out of solution than desired by normal drinkers).
The trick is to wait 15-30 s before popping the top. In this time, the foam floats back up to the headspace and breaks and any undissolved CO2 has a chance to redissolve into solution.
The really neat/nasty trick is to demonstrate your "psychic" ability to prevent a soda explosion. Shake the can mightily and then tap the top (gives them something to look at) while muttering your mantra. After 15-30 s, open it. When your audience then says "hey... I bet none of the cans will explode", you do it again, except squeeze the can slightly. The decrease in volume of the ccan and subsequent increase in pressure of the headspace, means that the CO2 takes alot longer to redissolve... and you have a mess. Nice people do this with club soda. Not so nice people start sidebets... :-)
2006-07-27 03:13:07 · answer #1 · answered by ChemDoc 3 · 5⤊ 1⤋
I conducted an experiment with this idea at hand. I bought a 6 pack of Mountain Dew. Shook them all up. Ironically I opened them one by one acheive the result of = explosion
Your mountain dew must have been a dud
2006-07-27 08:57:35 · answer #2 · answered by Engineer Adam 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, I guess explode is overstate, but the foam over like regular soda - Ive seen it do it
2006-07-27 00:02:14 · answer #3 · answered by imabiggles 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋