Magic Mentos

Magic MentosInvestigating the Chemical Reaction Between Mentos and Diet CokeSunjin KimApril 15, 2013Initial Observation My fifth grade science teacher showed our class a memorable science phenomenon. He put mentos in diet coke, shook it up, and sprayed us in the face with it This piqued my interest in finding out what made the diet coke explode so powerfully. 2The Science Behind the Explosion The tiny craters on the surface of mentos and carbon dioxide (CO2) in the diet coke are the two essential parts to the explosion. When you put mentos inside diet coke, the millions of craters on the mentos cause billions of CO2 bubbles to form rapidly. As the mentos falls to the bottom of the diet coke all of the bubbles rise rapidly to the top; therefore creating an explosion. 3QuestionsWill increasing the number of mentos make the diet coke explode higher? Will the height increase be the same for each additional mentos put in? Will there be a saturation point? 4Hypotheses Yes, I think that increasing the number of mentos will cause the diet coke to explode higher, but I think after a certain height, it will not go any higher. No, I do not think that it will be consistent. I think in the beginning, each additional mentos will explode higher, but after a certain point, it will no longer go higher. Yes, I think that there will be a saturation point. I think this because there is only so much coke in one bottle, so when you overwhelm it by putting in too many mentos it will not explode any higher. 5ObservationsConditions of first test: Time: 10 oclock Temperature: 50 degreesWeather: Sunny Conditions of second test:Time: 2 oclock Temperature: 57 degrees Weather: Windy and cloudy

The difference in height from test 1 and test 2 may be because of the change in conditions. 6Summary of Results Meters7Magic Mentos Video

8ConclusionsHypothesis number one is correct. Increasing the number of mentos by one makes the diet coke explode approximately 0.381 meters higher. This is true until you put around 4-5 mentos in the diet coke.Hypothesis number two is correct. The height of the explosions begin to plateau. The height increase is not the same. Hypothesis number three is correct. After 5-6 mentos, the height of the explosions flattened out. The increase was only about 0.127 meters higher.

9Magic Mentos Based on my science fair project, I am able to conclude that the Magic number of Mentos is:5 10Final Thoughts I tried to control everything in this experiment, but I realized that there were many factors outside of my control that may have influenced the results. For example, things like the temperature and different batches of diet coke and mentos. If I were to repeat this experiment again I would make sure that I would try to make all the conditions the same for the entire experiment.

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