Mentos in a 2 liter bottle of soda.?

Question

Someone told me recently that if you put Mentos in a 2 liter bottle of soda it will explode.

Has anyone done it? I have a kid that wants to try it. Is it dangerous?

Answer 1

Does it explode? Sort of.

Do you know how, when you mix baking soda and vinegar together, it foams up and creates a lot of pressure?

The same thing happens with mentos and soda, only it's a lot more impressive.

It's perfectly safe. Rather messy, but safe. You just take a whole bunch of mentos, and put them in the two liter bottle all at once. The soda will then shoot out of the bottle, kind of like a fountain.

Answer 2

It's not dangerous at all. You might get sprayed with some foam from the resulting geyser, but it washes off.....trust me.

To clarify a previous user's answer, it does not have to be diet soda, it's just that diet soda doesn't contain syrups or sugars that turn sticky and are difficult to clean up.

Here's how the trick works: Mentos contain a protien (usually guar gum or gum arabic) that breaks down the surface tension of the bubbles in soda. Thus, when the protein is introduced into the soda, the bubbles will rapidly expand and escape the bottle in the easiest way possible (path of least resistance).

The structure of the mentos also helps, as mentos have a very rough surface for the bubbles to adhere to.


so, anyway, it's a fun little thing to try, and it's completely harmless (do it outside!!)

Answer 3

How Does It Work:
Here's the question of the day... Why do Mentos mixed with soda produce this incredible eruption? You should know that there is considerable debate over how and why this works. While we offer the most probable explanations below, we also understand and admit that other explanation could be possible... and we welcome your thoughts.

As you probably know, soda pop is basically sugar (or diet sweetener), flavoring, water and preservatives. The thing that makes soda bubbly is invisible carbon dioxide gas, which is pumped into bottles at the bottling factory using tons of pressure. Until you open the bottle and pour a glass of soda, the gas mostly stays suspended in the liquid and cannot expand to form more bubbles, which gases naturally do. But there's more...

If you shake the bottle and then open it, the gas is released from the protective hold of the water molecules and escapes with a whoosh, taking some of the soda along with it. What other ways can you cause the gas to escape? Just drop something into a glass of soda and notice how bubbles immediately form on the surface of the object. For example, adding salt to soda causes it to foam up because thousands of little bubbles form on the surface of each grain of salt.

Many scientists, including Lee Marek, claim that the Mentos phenomenon is a physical reaction, not a chemical one. Water molecules strongly attract each other, linking together to form a tight mesh around each bubble of carbon dioxide gas in the soda. In order to form a new bubble, or even to expand a bubble that has already formed, water molecules must push away from each other. It takes extra energy to break this "surface tension." In other words, water "resists" the expansion of bubbles in the soda.

When you drop the Mentos into the soda, the gelatin and gum arabic from the dissolving candy break the surface tension. This disrupts the water mesh, so that it takes less work to expand and form new bubbles. Each Mentos candy has thousands of tiny pits all over the surface. These tiny pits are called nucleation sites - perfect places for carbon dioxide bubbles to form. As soon as the Mentos hit the soda, bubbles form all over the surface of the candy. Couple this with the fact that the Mentos candies are heavy and sink to the bottom of the bottle and you've got a double-whammy. When all this gas is released, it literally pushes all of the liquid up and out of the bottle in an incredible soda blast. You can see a similar effect when cooking potatoes or pasta are lowered into a pot of boiling water. The water will sometimes boil over because organic materials that leach out of the cooking potatoes or pasta disrupt the tight mesh of water molecules at the surface of the water, making it easier for bubbles and foam to form.

When a scoop of ice cream is added to root beer, the "float" foams over for essentially the same reason. The surface tension of the root beer is lowered by gums and proteins from the melting ice cream, and the CO2 bubbles expand and release easily, creating a beautiful foam on top

Next question... Why should you use diet Coke or diet Pepsi? The simple answer is that diet soda just works better than regular soda. Some people speculate that it has something to do with the artifical sweetner, but the verdict is still out. More importantly, diet soda does not leave a sticky mess to have to clean up. Hey, that's important.

Answer 4

You can take a package of Mentos and drop them into a 2 liter bottle of soda and it will be like a gusher. The soda shoots staight up in the air. An adult should probably do it. All the Mentos need to drop in at the same time.

Answer 5

Not dangerous... Use Diet Coke (must be diet) and a package of mentos (contains 14 mentos.) A fountain of soda about 8 - 10 feet high will result. (Not explosive)

Remove soda cap.
Roll up a sheet of paper into a tube (load mentos)
Place tube over soda opening so they all fall in at once.

Answer 6

Pressure, and many other gases or ingredients inside the mentos, Did you know?: That when you put 10 mentos in if you count to 10 the bottle will errupt! CAUTIOUN: Do this in a clear space! If you do it to close to your house You will be very upset... TRUST ME!

Answer 7

Pretty cool huh??? America has so much food we can waste it on soda & mentos experiments. Sad folks....very sad!

Did ya know??? America grows enough Pumpkins every year to feed every man, woman, and child in the WHOLE WORLD for a week...but we don't eat many of them...they rot on our yards instead....oh yeah...we are really cool!

American wastes more food every day than most countries grow in a whole year....very very sad!

Answer 8

Yeah we did it at work one day. It's pretty cool. Just take a package of Mentos and dropped them all at one into the coke bottle. It will not hurt you and it looks very cool, your kids will love it.

Answer 9

Go to youtube and search:
mentos diet coke

u will find a few hundred movies of the experiment.
It is almost not dangerous if you know what you are doing and follow proper safety measures regarding PPE. eye protection mainly. It is very messy.

Answer 10

try looking for a video on this on youtube.com, type in diet coke with mentos and search for the results