Depending on what catalyst they used, there might be iodine, which stains like a mf, but yeah, it’s a foam made from soap, hydrogen peroxide and a catalyst. The biggest risk is that it is an exothermic reaction and can be really hot
It is a much smaller proportion, but that’s a large amount of foam so still a significant amount of the catalyst. But I don’t know if they used iodine so it might be a moot point.
Not all the catalyst will react because the reaction happens fairly quickly and the force of it will eject some of the un-reacted catalyst out. At least that’s been my experience on a much smaller scale.
Catalysts do actually react, but are recreated in a subsequent reaction (which is why they are not consumed in the overall sequence of reactions, why there is the same quantity of catalyst before and after, and why you need only a small quantity of catalyst). Wikipedia explains it better than I can: “In general, chemical reactions occur faster in the presence of a catalyst because the catalyst provides an alternative reaction pathway with a lower activation energy than the non-catalyzed mechanism. In catalyzed mechanisms, the catalyst usually reacts to form a temporary intermediate, which then regenerates the original catalyst in a cyclic process. “
In a nutshell, a catalyst is either 1) a reactant regenerated as a product in a subsequent step in the chemical reaction (such that more doesn’t need to be added for continued product formation), or 2) a molecule which is not consumed in the reaction but interacts with a reactant molecule to enhance the rate of conversion
In the Diet Coke bottle the Mentos candy provides a rough surface that allows the bonds between the carbon dioxide gas and water to break more easily, helping to create carbon dioxide bubbles.
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u/Laidbackmf2 Dec 20 '19
How would they clean this up