Reply To: The Random Post Thread (Game Potential)

[three08]

carried over from the joco’s twitters thread…

carbonation of soda pop is achieved by dissolving CO₂ in the beverage and keeping it under pressure. keeping it pressurized is required, because when you mix CO₂ and water (H₂O) it tends to move to an equilibrium between CO₂/H₂O and carbonic acid (H₂C0₃). carbonic acid is only stable as a gas at one atmosphere and room temperature. (it happens that all vertebrate life depends upon this fact – waste CO₂ from the muscles and extremities is carried to the lungs as carbonic acid, which converts to gaseous form when exposed to open air in the lungs and is exhaled.)

although now i look at it, apparently i misread sodium bicarbonate as NaH₂CO₃, when it’s actually NaHCO₃. i guess when it reacts with water what you get is that the sodium ionizes leaving you with HCO₃, which reacts with the water by transferring one H from the H₂O to the HCO₃, which gives you H₂CO₃ and OH^– – a solution which would be slightly alkaline.

( NaHCO₃ + H₂O -> H₂CO₃ + OH^– )

and then you’d get the Na⁺ ions and the OH^– ions combining for sodium hydroxide (NaOH), also known as lye, which is generally not healthy… unless you also reacted it with hydrochloric acid (HCl) which would ionize and then you get:

NaOH + HCl -> NaCl + H₂O

although i suppose it’s probably easier to just buy a canister of CO₂ from the company than mix baking soda and hydrochloric acid with water in the right proportions without maiming yourself.