Research: Science and Education

Are Fizzing Drinks Boiling?

A Chemical Insight from Chemistry Education Research
Alan Goodwin
Institute of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester M20 2RR, UK; A.Goodwin@mmu.ac.uk

During the course of research on the understanding of the

processes of boiling and evaporation by graduate scientists who
were training to become secondary school science teachers in
the UK, a variety of situations relating to evaporation, boiling,
and bubbling were presented on video for them to explain.
Among these situations was the very obvious difference between
opening a can of carbonated drink immediately after it has
been shaken vigorously and opening one that has been left
undisturbed for a long time. Deamer and Selinger had explored
the issue of whether the pressure in the can increases on
shaking (1); and when the research mentioned above was
planned, this situation was seen as an interesting everyday
phenomenon involving bubbles, but not one that was closely
related to boiling. The realization that it is an example of a
boiling solution came to me as something of a surprise after
more than 40 years of learning and teaching chemistry.
When the question was asked of the sample of 52 graduate
scientists in the main study, all except two said the fizzing
drinks were not boiling. The two were unsure.
My convictions on this matter were presented at the 15th
Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (Waterloo, ON,
Canada, 1998) and at the 5th European Conference on
Chemical Education (Ioannina, Greece, 1999). In addition,
a multitude of informal discussions with colleagues and students have confirmed that the idea is controversial among
chemists and chemical educators. This paper presents the case
for considering that fizzing drinks are boiling.
The Issue
I cannot recall nor can I find any example in a chemical
textbook or paper that refers to a fizzing drink (or any situation where a gas such as carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen,
or methane escapes from solution) as boiling. Neither is the
consequent separation of carbon dioxide from the aqueous
solution perceived as an example of fractional distillation.
I seem to remember (but cannot cite) a description of a
divers blood boiling when he surfaced too rapidly from a
great depth. This case of the bends would be an example
of bubbles (mainly of nitrogen gas) being formed in the blood
and leading to major physiological problems. However, I
suspect that the writer would not have had the same chemical
meaning as I for the word boiling. If you are aware of any
example in the literature that equates fizzing to boiling,
I should very much like to hear from you.
Chemists Definitions of Boiling
These are readily checked out in standard physical chemistry textsfor example, Atkins (2):
The temperature at which the vapor pressure of a liquid
is equal to the ambient pressure is called the boiling
temperature.

Table 1. Opening a Can of Fizzy Drink

Fizzy Drink, Sequence

Description of System

Sealed in can at room

temperature

System at equilibriumthe solution is at its boiling

point (room temperature) at the pressure of the
bubble of gas inside the can (CO2 + H2O gas).

When first opened The pressure on the surface of the solution is much
reduced so that the solution is now well above its
normal boiling point.
Then

Finally

It "boils" (if bubbles can form) until the concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide falls to that which
has a boiling point equal to room temper-ature at
atmospheric pressure.
Evaporation (of CO2 and H2O) continues until
PH2O and PCO2 from the solution are equal to those
prevailing in the external atmosphere.

Any liquid can boil when its saturated vapor pressure is

equal to (or greater than) the pressure on the surface of the
liquid. It will boil only if it is possible for bubbles of vapor to
form within the liquid.
Within a closed container, the saturated vapor pressure
(SVP) of a solution of carbon dioxide in water (soda water)
is given by
SVP = PH2O + PCO2
In the closed container the solution is under pressure and at
equilibrium. It is at its boiling point (the temperature of
the room).
When the container is opened the pressure on the surface of the solution is reduced. The solution is no longer at
equilibrium and is now above its normal boiling point (at
atmospheric pressure). Provided there are some nuclei present
that will enable the formation of bubbles, the solution will
boil. Note that while the container remains open equilibrium is impossible, because exchange of carbon dioxide and
water vapor with the atmosphere takes place.
Since the vapor is much richer in carbon dioxide than
the solution from which it forms, the liquid becomes poorer
in carbon dioxide as the boiling occurs. The changes are
summarized in Table 1. A more detailed exploration of the
background to evaporation and boiling follows, since this
helps to demonstrate my understandings. This may well be
controversial, but if you still believe that fizzing drinks are
not boiling please try to convince me.
In my discussion I shall assume that carbon dioxide and
water form ideal solutions. Although this certainly is not true
across the whole range of composition, it does not materially
affect the argument. With fizzing drinks we are dealing with
relatively dilute solutions of carbon dioxide in water at
moderate pressures and room temperature.
What Is Evaporation?
Evaporation occurs from the surface when particles at the
surface with sufficient kinetic energy to escape the attraction

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Research: Science and Education

of other particles happen to be moving in the direction out

from the surface. This escape energy is much higher than the
average kinetic energy of the particles. If the system is open to
the atmosphere, such particles will tend to diffuse away. Hence:

If the system is closed and is maintained at constant temperature, a dynamic equilibrium is eventually reached when
the rate of evaporation from the surface is equal to the rate
of condensation into the surface. The pressure of the vapor
at equilibrium is called the saturated vapor pressure (SVP) at
that temperature.
An interesting question that many of us find difficult to
answer and which observant pupils sometimes ask is: How is it
that the vapor is at the same temperature as the liquid? Surely,
since only the most energetic molecules are able to enter the
vapor, the average kinetic energy of the gas molecules must
be higher than that of the molecules in the liquid? The vapors
temperature must be higher.
There are probably two main aspects to an answer to this:
1. As the molecules enter the vapor state there is a considerable gain in potential energy as forces of attraction
are overcome during the separation of the molecules.
This adds up to the latent heat of evaporation of the
liquid and can only be derived from the equivalent
reduction in the kinetic energy of the molecules.
2. Both the liquid and the vapor are in thermal contact
with each other and with the same external ambient
temperature.

SVP / atm

The average KE of the remaining particles in the liquid

will decrease and the temperature of the liquid will fall
(heat may then transfer in from outside the system).

Not to scale
(T = 25C)

SVP of solution

SVP of CO2

0.04

SVP of H2O
0

Mole fraction CO2

Figure 1. Idealized diagram for the water/carbon dioxide system.

100

vaporous

Temperature / C

The bulk of the liquid will decrease.

72

B
room temperature

liquidus
100

What Is Boiling?
For a pure liquid, boiling is possible when the SVP of the
liquid is sufficient to support a bubble of vapor in the liquid
(i.e., when the SVP at the temperature in question is equal to
or greater than the pressure acting on the surface of the liquid).
Under these conditionswhen bubbles have formedevaporation takes place from all liquid surfaces. This allows the
bubbles of vapor to grow rapidly as they rise through the liquid.
When bubbles can form readily any heat applied is carried
away quickly by evaporation from the surface into the bubble and
the boiling point remains constant at constant external pressure.
For a solution of two volatile components the situation
is exactly analogous, except that each substance contributes
to the SVP of the solution. If the solution is ideal, then the
vapor pressure for each component can be predicted from
Raoults law. That is, the actual vapor pressure of water is the
SVP of pure water multiplied by the mole fraction of water in
the solution. The same applies to the SVP of carbon dioxide
in the solution.
At around room temperature the diagram for CO2/H2O
would be something like that shown in Figure 1 if the solution
were ideal. The very large difference in SVP between the two
pure substances at the same temperature makes the diagram
difficult to interpret (even in this diagram the SVP of water
has been exaggerated).
Even more speculatively, the temperature-vs-composition
diagram for water and carbon dioxide would look something
386

0
1

Mole fraction CO2

Mole fraction H2O

1
0

Figure 2. Temperature vs composition for CO 2 /H 2 O system

(speculative). The shaded area cannot be real because at these
temperatures solids will have formed in the system.

like Figure 2. Much of this diagram cannot be real because

the system would contain solids in much of the shaded area.
However, within the small range of composition relevant to
fizzing drinks the diagram is qualitatively accurate. It is clear
that at 25 C the system has a liquid, relatively poor in CO2
(as in Fig. 2, point A), producing a vapor, which is very rich
in CO2 (Fig. 2, point B). This is important in explaining the
ease with which separation of carbon dioxide from water
occurs as the solution boils at room temperature. This
constitutes fractional distillation.
Conclusions
As a chemical discovery, the realization that fizzing
drinks are boiling may be trivial in the extreme. Indeed, for
nonchemists or for chemists in the everyday world, it can
be little more than semantic detail. Even if you are convinced
by the above discussion, it would seem foolhardy to ask for
boiling lemonade in a bar, especially if you want ice in it!

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Research: Science and Education

At a personal level, however, the event has been very significant for me since it has become a step beyond just interpreting
someone elses chemistry.
I should indeed welcome further opportunity to defend
and refine (perhaps even change) my position.
A more extended discussion of the educational implications of the research is given in ref 3.

Literature Cited
1. Deamer, D. W.; Selinger, B. K. J. Chem. Educ. 1988, 65, 518.
2. Atkins, P. W. Physical Chemistry, 4th ed.; Oxford University
Press: New York, 1990; p 133.
3. Goodwin, A. J. Chem. Educ., Res. Practice Eur. 2000, 1 (1), 51
60; online at http://www.uoi.gr/conf_sem/cerapie/2000_January/
11goodwinf.html (accessed Nov 2000).

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