“Foaming volcano at home” experiment

How to make a volcano from baking soda and liquid soap

This is the safest ac­tive vol­cano in ex­is­tence.

Reagents and equip­ment:

  • plas­ticine;
  • bak­ing soda (10 g);
  • red food col­or­ing;
  • liq­uid soap (10 ml);
  • 9% so­lu­tion of acetic acid (100ml);
  • spoon.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Make a vol­cano with plas­ticine and pour bak­ing soda into the “crater”. Then add a few drops of food col­or­ing and liq­uid soap. Stir thor­ough­ly. Then add acetic acid to the mix­ture. Watch the vol­cano erupt!

Pro­cess­es de­scrip­tion

Bak­ing soda is sodi­um bi­car­bon­ate. It re­acts with acetic acid with the re­lease of car­bon diox­ide. The gas makes the liq­uid soap froth, and the vol­cano erupts!

NaH­CO₃ + CH₃­COOH = CH₃­COONa + CO₂ + H₂O

Try it