Why Does Soda Explode When You Shake It?🥤

Morning Soda Shakers!

We’ve all done it…

You know, when your friend buys a soda.

And then while they aren’t looking, you just… give it a little bit of a shake.

So that when they finally open it up…

BOOM!

But have you ever wondered… what causes this soda eruption??

Well, here’s the science behind it.

But first, you have to understand something called solubility.

I’ll try to make it as simple as possible:

A soluble substance is basically something that dissolves in water.

Like sugar and salt, for example.

Now, when you drop a soluble substance, say salt, into some water

The water molecules grab the solid salt molecules and separate them.

Leaving them floating about in the water.

At this point, the water is called saturated, which basically just means it’s PACKED full of salt molecules.

So many salt molecules, in fact, many of them start to re-bind together forming crystals.

So basically the salt molecules are re-binding together into clumps just as quickly as the water is dissolving them.

This is what's called equilibrium.

Which is what's happening inside of soda, but instead of salt, its Carbon Dioxide (CO2) gas that’s dissolved in the drink.

However, inside the soda are 2 different types of CO2:

(Just like water has dissolved salt and crystalized salt)

If kept at a certain temperature and pressure, this stays the same…aka at equilibrium.

But when you open a soda, the pressure gets released, and the CO2 tries to escape.

But, the thing is, when you shake a soda, it disrupts its equilibrium before opening it.

Creating a TON of CO2 bubbles that make it really easy for more CO2 to escape super quickly.

Because the bubbles will join up with other bubbles to create more and more bubbles.

Releasing as a giant fizzy foam once you open the bottle!

Stay Cute,
Reece, Henry & Dylan 🌈

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