Putting Mentos In Diet Coke: A Chemical Change

Most people might believe that putting mentos in diet coke is a chemical change, but it is actually a physical change. This is because the pieces that caused the reaction are still there, but they have just been rearranged. This also means that changing some of the factors in this experiment might cause another physical reaction to occur on a smaller or even larger scale.(Science Buddies) What you see when mentos are put into diet coke is that the coke spews out of it’s container once contacted with the mentos. But have you ever wondered why this reaction occurs? Well, a carbonated beverage is full of the gas carbon dioxide, and carbon dioxide forms bonds with water. The gas is kept in place in the bottle of soda because of the bottle’s pressurized conditions. This is why soda fizzes when it’s being poured into a cup. The gas is being released, and forms foam. Most of the carbon dioxide stays trapped though, due to the surface tension of the water. For the
This would inhibit the reaction because the faster the mentos sink, the more increased the reaction is. Crushing up the mentos would cause them to sink slower, and then slow down the reaction. The reaction could also be inhibited if the coke was cold. The colder the soda is, the less fizz there would be, so the reaction to mentos would be less.You could also use a different soda in the reaction to slow it down. Many different sodas have been tried with mentos, and Diet Coke has done the best, even compared with regular coke. So if you wanted to inhibit this reaction, you could use a soda other than Diet Coke. Another thing that would inhibit the reaction would be to use a regular mint instead of mentos. This is because the regular mints, even though they have a rough surface, do not contain gum arabic, which is part of the reason the reaction is as intense as it is, so a regular mint would inhibit the