What kind of mentos for diet coke experiment

I can so relate. Pinning this! I know, Vicky. I should have set up a video camera or something. My head was down, staring at the Mentos, and I actually had to ask the kids how high the geyser shot. Saw the guys do this at makerfaire. They said that the warmer the soda the bigger the explosion. Ooooh, thank you Ashley for the great tip.

We had fun with this one recently, too. Luckily, I was ready for the big explosion! I am going to pick up the soda and Mentos before I pick up the kids. Diet coke is fizzy and bubbly because it contains carbon dioxide gas.

This carbon dioxide is waiting to escape the liquid in the form of bubbles. When you drop something into a bottle of soda, this process is sped up. The surface tension is broken and the bubbles leave the soda and attach to the object. This process is called nucleation, and the places where the bubbles form are called nucleation sites. As you drop the mentos into the soda, bubbles form all over the surface.

Mentos are covered in loads of tiny dimples which increase the surface area and create more nucleation sites where nucleation occurs as carbon dioxide in the drink forms bubbles.

Loads of nucleation sites means more nucleation and loads of bubbles as the carbon dioxide leaves the soda and attaches to the mentos.

Does temperature affect the eruption height? Observations and results Was the eruption higher when whole Mentos candies were used compared with crushed candies? Was less Diet Coke left in the bottle after the reaction with the whole candies compared with the crushed ones?

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. As the Mentos candy sinks in the bottle, the candy causes the production of more and more carbon dioxide bubbles, and the rising bubbles react with carbon dioxide that is still dissolved in the soda to cause more carbon dioxide to be freed and create even more bubbles, resulting in the eruption.

Because Mentos candies are rather dense, they sink rapidly through the liquid, causing a fast, large eruption. The crushed Mentos candies, however, are not as dense as the whole ones, which causes them to sink more slowly, creating a relatively small cola fountain, which should also leave more liquid in the bottle than the larger eruption with whole Mentos candies did.

Cleanup Hose off any part of a building that was splashed with Diet Coke. If you try this project with regular Coke, the eruption should still happen but its sugary content may make cleaning more difficult.

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