Carbonated beverages, or sodas, provide a simple chemical system that can be used to introduce students to a wide variety of chemical concepts including catalysis, chemical kinetics, acid-base chemistry, chemical equilibria, the gas laws, and climate science. In this talk, you will learn about several simple experiments that can be conducted with sodas. For example, you’ll learn how to easily find the pressure inside a carbonated beverage, to produce a rainbow of colors by degassing a soda, and to quantitatively monitor the kinetics of foam production in the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment. Additionally, reports on the results of several small research projects that involve the science of sodas will be discussed. The results from these experiments could potentially provide inspiration for ideas for you and your students to explore.

Presenter: Tom Kuntzleman, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Spring Arbor University, Spring Arbor, MI
Date: Thursday, November 19, 2020, 7:00 pm ET