Why do Mentos make fizzy drinks erupt?
Diet Coke and Mentos: What is really behind this physical reaction?
A physics professor and her students worked out why dropping mints into fizzy drinks makes a fountain.
Tonya Shea Coffey and her undergraduates dropped Mentos and other things into bottles of fizzy drinks outdoors and measured how far the fountains flew.
The trick is the mint’s rough, pitted surface, which gives carbon dioxide bubbles loads of places to form, helped by ingredients that lower surface tension. A classic party trick, now with proper peer review.
Not chemistry, technically. Just very enthusiastic physics.