r. chemistryadventure: the textbook

How the Coatings of Mentos affects the size of the Mentos Eruption by Carly Clark and Jenn Agamie Introduction: For our experiment we decided to test the different effects of mentos coatings on diet coke to see the different heights of eruptions. To test our theory we used a control, which was the regularly coated mentos, mentos without any coating, and mentos drenched in dish soap. After three trials we were able to clearly see that the regularly coated mentos had the best eruption by far.

Summary: Throughout our experiment we concluded that the non-coated mentos had the worst height.

The average height in centimeters after three trials was only 33.33 cm. This shows that there was hardly any eruption at all. The mentos soaked in dish soap averaged to be 58.33 cm, which is better than the non-coated but still not superb. Finally, we were able to test the regular mentos and received an average height of 230 cm. We made sure to use exactly ten mentos per liter of diet coke so that we had a constant throughout our experiment.

Experimental Section: The design of our experiment was to see what actually made the mentos in the diet coke to erupt. After several ideas were tossed around we decided to see if the coating had anything to do with the eruptions. In order to test this idea we de-coated ten mentos and covered ten more in Dial dish soap. Then we gathered ten more mentos and left them with their regular coating. Instead of stringing the mentos onto a wire and dropping them into the diet coke bottles we decided to place all ten of them into a graduated cylinder and hold a thin piece of paper over the opening. We flipped the graduated cylinder upside down so that the opening covered with paper was lined up to the top of the diet coke bottle. We tried to let as little carbonation out of the bottle as possible, so that there was more of a reaction.

Procedure: 1. First, we gathered our materials, which consisted of a graduated cylinder, 3 liters of diet coke, and 2 packages of mentos. We also used dial dish soap, a beaker, and thin pieces of paper, two-meter sticks, and a bucket.

2. Then we made three piles of ten mentos. One set we covered in soap, then next set was regular, and the third we soaked in a beaker full of hot water so that the coating would dissolve.

3. After the mentos were ready, we placed one liter of diet coke in the bucket so that when the eruption occurred soda wasnâ€&#x;t sprayed everywhere.

4. Next, we taped two-meter sticks together and tied them around the diet coke bottle so that we were able to see the height of the eruption.

5. Then one of us held the graduated cylinder upside down above the top of the bottle. While the other person unscrewed the cap.

6. As soon as the cap was unscrewed the person holding the graduated cylinder moved the paper and released the mentos into the diet coke.

7. We made sure to stand far enough from the eruption so that we wouldnâ€&#x;t get soaked in soda, but close enough to see the height of the eruption.

8. Once each different type of mentos underwent the experiment we recorded our data into a table.

9. We performed the experiment two more times. Each time recording our data to make sure the height 17