Warm Soda has a dramatic effect on the Height of a Mentos Eruption by Justin Husted While numerous experiments have been done with the coke mentos eruption, sometimes called the coke mentos geyser or rocket, very few have tried testing the effects of the temperature of soda before adding the mentos. Some brave experimenters have come to the conclusion that the reaction rate appears to double for every 10 degrees Celsius that you heat the diet coke. Similarly for every 10 degrees that the soda is cooled (or frozen) the reaction power and height is cut in half. 4 Also according to www.stevespangler- science.com, the temperature of the soda greatly affects how much force and height the geyser of soda fizz will shoot up to.5 My goal is to duplicate their experiments in an attempt to find if the temperature of the diet coke actually affects the height of the mentos eruption. The Experiment: By submerging bottles of coke into different water temperatures, we can safely control the temperature of the soda inside. The three temperatures being used in this experiment are cold, (262 K) room temperature (298 K) and warm diet coke (approximately 308 degrees K). Using eight mentos in each bottle, they will be set up to erupt and see which yields the biggest eruption. Summary of findings: The results of the experiment were clear and as expected. The coldest coda resulted in the small and shortest eruption of diet coke. The room temperature soda had expected results and was a relative increase from the cool soda. The warm diet cokeâ€&#x;s results sky-rocketed. Of the two warm test trials, both blast the coke into the air with a large amount of force, resulting in an average height more than double what the room temperature soda achieved. Conclusion: At the conclusion of this experiment I found that, as expected, the warmest soda temperature produced the biggest results of the three. The coldest soda temperature barely erupted out of the bottle. The cold soda was submerged in water measured at 263 degrees Kelvin. After putting in eight mentos, the following eruption resulted in about 20 centimeters of height. The next largest was the soda that was left in the classroom for two days to ensure it was the average temperature of the room. The temperature was measured at 298 degrees Kelvin. The resulting eruption was approximately one meter exactly. (100 centimeters). The final trial was of the warmest soda was that which was heated in water measured at 308 degrees Kelvin. The resulting reaction resulted in an eruption of 300 centimeters (three meters). By the results of the data, it is easily safe to conclude that the warmer the diet coke temperature, the more height the eruption gained.
Experimental Procedure: The following steps will lead to the exact duplicate of the above experiment. 4
Username: “Labmonkey� Yahooanswers.com January 10th, 2008
5
www.stevespanglerscience.com, mentos and soda temperature.
19