Mentos + Soda = Explosion

Ummm, why do people keep saying that it works best with diet cola? The main ingredient for the reaction is simply the CO2 in the sugar-water.

Vernor's Gingerale has the most of any beverage that I have found.

However, other such ingredients as artificial-sweetener and welsewhat may help get the catalyst started. But the mentos thing will work with any carbonated beverage. The more carbonation = the higher the explosion, up to a point anyways.

My record with a 2L is 24 ft.

ok well first of all you should punch a hole in the top of the bottle lid. You can do this with a nail and hammer. (keep the nail that you used because you wil need it later). Buy some chewing gum and mentos. Then chew the chewing gum for a while just enough so that its all soft and sticky. Then stick it to the lid making sure that you cover the hole. Then stick your mentos to the chewing gum.(if you want to add more then 1 mentos put another layer of chewing gum on top of the mentos then apply another mentos etc.)then screw the lid back on carefully. and get your nail and push it through the hole carefully but quickly. then stand back fast and watch your diet coke and mentos fly! it should look like a rocket cross with a fountain.

It's easier if you just stick a small magnet to the Mento. Then you can use a larger magnet to keep it up in the cap until you're ready to let it spray.

this site is awesome!! im gonna try this one my bro l8r cya

well im doing my proect on this and well it got me wondering if this gum arabic resolution was true soo i decided to experiment with things that didnt have gum arabic in them (such as salt sugar and even pennies) and in resolution salt fizzed even miore then mentos! well could u please anser me and tell me wat makes mentos explode in cola

mine went 2682968562682 feet into the air it was sooo kool you have no idea you guys all suck because mine is a world record yeah!

heyy i belive that the "arabic gum" is the thingy that makes it explode and i know this because i tried it and im trying to get the stain off my roof from where the pop had hit lol

wow amazing....................................not

i tried this and it works

Just put diet Coke into a glass with one Mentos...lots of fizzing, no explosion. Much like plop plop fizz fizz, for those of you who remember Alka-Seltzer commercials, or the fizzy Vitamin C pills doctors here give you if you have a cold. No explosion, not even a mess in my kitchen sink. I think that answers the shape of the bottle question. I can't believe it's dangerous enough to kill anyone.

with all of you people saying that this expirement is fake and it's not what people claim... then what is it?? I'm doing it for a science expirement and it seems all the websites I've been to have people saying it's wonrg. I need to know.
And for all of you people who try eating Mentos and drinking soda it didn't do anything for a reason... You'd have to eat all the mentos at the same time... If not than nothing will happen.

For all of the people who wonder why Diet Pepsi works better: It does'nt necessarily "work" better. I heard it's just easier to clean up at the end because it's less sticky.
And to all the people who keep saying nothing happened with 1 mentos: Well DUHH!!!! You need more than one montos. i heard 13 mentos and a 2-Liter bottle work the best

We have tried it as a school science experiment and it was amazing to see the affect it had .You should try it , just remember not to drink it. Hehe....

Sam and Tam
South Africa
Penryn Collage

yeah i remember doing it in my physical science class... Astonishingly, i was the only person in the class (besides the teacher, of course) who had previously done the experiment!!

well, this is a great reaction, but i don't believe that it has anything to do with the arabic gum, though i could be wrong. i've just always heard that it's because of the carbon dioxide. but i could be wrong, i mean sheesh im no scientist =]

well shelby there has to be something in the montos to create the explosion. u cant just open a bottle of soda and have it explode... it has something to do with the mentos. wether its gum arabic or not im not sure. but i assure u it's not just the carbon dioxide gas... that makes no sense.

nice stuff, but it the nucleation sites nothin else

how do u know?!?!?!?! u dont know everything!!!
and could you tell me how you came up with that solution? and how other people came up with the wrong ones?! For my science fair project

:) I am doing a science experiement on it!

Umm the correct thing is cocunate oil.

Hey... I am planning to do this for a science fair project... Can you please help me out and provide some information (more) on why mentos cause soda to explode?.... and if there are certain types that do it... PLEASE!!! thanks.... i appreciate it a lot...

well cassy. the first answer i found was from the gum arabic and the carbon dioxide gas. im doing it for a science fair project as well. but as i came upon this site other people were saying its different things. i feel i should go with what scientists say not other people on the internet so im going with gum arabic and carbon dioxide gas. i found a really good website that has info for it. i forget the name right now but its pretty hard to follow so i gt my smart friend to translate. ill be more than willing to help u with it too. just ask on this site

dunno if its been posted or not cause i didnt feel like reading all the posts, but tapping a can "defizzes" it because of a thing called efervesance, look it up

haha, i put mentos in my mouth and drank soda, it fizzled, but nothing really major happened. It sounded really cool though!

void(0);
LOLOMGOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i like, love this experiment!!!!!!!! its the best !! its awesome!!!! its coooooooooooooooooooo kool!!!!! i just have 2 do it. lolvoid(0);
red face

I think that the carbon dioxide gasses cling to the little pits that are all over the mentos macking it bubble

rasberry tongue laugh Nice!

MY CLASS IS DOING A SCIENCE
PROJECT ON THE MENTOS AND THE DIET COKE
AND I KNOW U HAD SOME EXPERIENCE WITH THAT
AND I WAS WONDERING IF U CAN GIVE ME A REALLY
KOOL WEDSIGHT ABOUT THOES OR JUST TELL ME WAT
HAPPEND AND HOW DID U DO IT!

it was fun
ghjzfgtjfthjfgjhfj

ok so i have to do an end of the year project for my advanced chemistry class, i wanted to do pop rocks and soda becuz i heard it would produce the same reaction as mentos and soda... anyone know if this is tru or not? if so could you please respond asap... oh and also which sodas work the best would be helpful too :D

Hey guys...I tried the experiment and i obviously didnt do any research to find it has to be a bottle. What i did is put the coke in a cup and dropped some mentos in and only a little fizz happened. now ive run out of mentos lol so i should have researched first..

"diet" works, not BECAUSE of the aspartame, but because of the lack of sugar. disolved sugar in water is ionic and slows this type of reaction. several other factors do contribute to the reaction, some of which were named previously: nucleation sites, gum arabic and its water-tension breaking properties, both of which help the violent release of all of the CO2. Also, the acidity of the diet soda helps to immediately disolve the mentos, causing more nucleations sites and even more reaction. This experiment is like a physical version of a nuclear bomb, but instead of massive amounts of heat, light, gamma rays and subsequent radiation, the only products are all of the CO2 in the soda; flat, no-longer-carbonated diet coke and all of the energy exerted by the escaping gas. AS previously on this chain, DO NOT SCREW THE CAP BACK ON!!!! This is WAY TOO VIOLENT a reaction to assume that the thin plastic of a 2 liter or 20 oz. bottle could handle the pressure. THE BOTTLE WILL BLOW UP AND YOU MAY GET HURT OR HURT OTHERS.

Hmm. Well, I dropped three mentos into a glass of pepsi. It didn't explode, but it sure did fizz a lot. I'm drinking Pepsi/swallowing mentos right now to see if I get bloated. Hmmm I do feel a little pressure at the back of my throat... I'll have to do this again (not in my body but in bottles) with different kinds of soda. I'll let you know if I ever get around to doing it

did you no you can die from this if you put it in your mouth da DUH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i like bannanas over mentos any day 😛 but im doing this experiment for school so i was searching up information on this experiment.

wow it is so amazing i did it at my school with my teachers and it went so high......... yea it was alot of funn it got on my teacher lol =D

First, there definately is some chemical in Mentos that participates in the eruption. To prove that's it's not all about the nucleation sites, take a Mentos and dissolve it in water. This way there won't be any physical structures, just the chemicals. Then pour this "Mentos water" into a soda. Tada! It still foams up like crazy.

Likewise, other substances that reduce the surface tension of water also cause the soda to release it's pent-up carbon dioxide. For example, dissolve a little dishsoap into some water, then toss that into a soda bottle. You'll get a really good fizz-over.

Certainly nucleation sites contribute to fizzing, but that's only part of the story.

umm ya i saw the mythbusters episode also on this and what that guy said is true about it it was a really kool episode also i get to do this as a presentation at my church and so ya

If you try it with mint mentos and diet coke it willl probably work when you eat em.

:) :lol: okay you guyws no wat you are all saying different things wat is really true does it explode in your stomache or wat because noone can get this straight

me and alexa might be doing this for science fair07-08 and we will need mentos and diet sodas and just what and see waht happens!!!!-what do you think the effects is going to be when you mix up mentos and diet soda?!

:-) i did this in science it was masive :zip:

no thing happens when you drink soda and then eat mentos.. all you feel is a little bit of gas and thats all. then you have to burp but thats about it

whats in mentos ?????

i bvet you that if you drink some diet coke and then eat mentos but not chew them then swallow them your stomach would probably explode. but if you chew them then your stomach wont explode.
Hehe thats just a thought though
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH

umm... it does work with regular coke, mountain dew, etc. It just works best with diet coke. And only some kinds of mentos work. Certain flavors of mentos have a waxy coating that covers up the "nucleation sites". Hope this helps 😊

hi it was sweet!!!!!!!!

:lol: i always thot that was a myth till my science teacher did this.

woah hey.

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