Our theater association is looking for a method to make water foam like champagne.
In the play, one of the characters empties a number of bottles of champagne into a small (empty) aquarium due to a misunderstanding. A little later, large drinking straws are used and blown into the aquarium with them, creating a champagne foam mass.
It is of course financially unfeasible for us to use champagne (or sparkling wine). So we are looking for a way that we can just foam water so that the public has the illusion that it is really foaming champagne.
One of our members had already tried soapy water, but it resulted in bubbles (not champagne bubbles/foam).
Answer
Hi Chris,
You will have to try a few things in terms of amounts, which will work best. I would try the following. This is essentially the same thing that happens in an effervescent tablet. All reagents as well as the reaction are harmless.
– Fill the “champagne” bottles with water in which citric acid has been dissolved. Citric acid is a food additive that you can buy at stores that sell food products and the like.
– Put a small layer of water in the aquarium containing a concentrated solution of baking soda or baking soda (sodium hydrogen carbonate) in water.
The reaction between the two substances produces carbon dioxide, CO2. That will make the necessary calls. There is of course a difference with real champagne. In champagne, the CO . is2 dissolved under pressure, and is therefore released more slowly when the bottle is opened. The effervescent tablet system that I am proposing here produces the CO2 by a chemical reaction, and is therefore released more quickly. The effect will therefore not last as long. It may be more efficient to spread the second product as a solid in a thin layer on the bottom. In any case, blowing will not cause the gas production to intensify unless the two layers are not mixed well, and are mixed by the blowing. This assumes that the bottles are poured VERY carefully. I suspect that, given the setting, this is not really feasible.
As for the quantities, 1 gram of citric acid reacts with 1.3 grams of sodium hydrogen carbonate.
I wish you the best of luck with the performance.
Answered by
Dr Etienne Jooken
Chemistry
Old Market 13 3000 Leuven
https://www.kuleuven.be/
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