How can fermentation break glass if there’s no increase in matter in the bottle?

615 viewsOtherPhysics

I’m thinking of like when you bottle wine that’s still fermenting, and it explodes. I understand that the fermentation process raises the air pressure inside the bottle. What I *don’t* understand is how? When you pump air into a balloon, the air pressure rises because there are *more* air molecules entering the balloon.

With wine in a bottle, you have a fixed amount of matter at a certain temperature. I don’t understand how fermentation could increase air pressure in a closed system?

In: Physics

21 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Volume and mass are two different things. Fermentation creates gas which has a larger volume than the base materials.

To put it another way, you have the same amount of “particles” but the particles spread out.

It’s like freezing water in a water bottle. You can put a fixed amount of water in a bottle but as it freezes it expands and it will blow the lid off the bottle.

You are viewing 1 out of 21 answers, click here to view all answers.