How come there aren’t any tablets to make sparkling drinking water (the Soda Stream way), although there are tablets that can make the it sparkling, i.e. water soluble Vitamin C tablets?

Question

I have really searched all over the internet, it doesn’t exist. I believe I can’t be the first one to think of that trick, so there must be a reason for that. Can anyone illuminate me by explaining like I’m really 5, as I’m a chemistry alien. Thanks!

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

First you need to understand what makes water or soda sparkling.
You take water and carbonic acid (which is a gas, H2CO3).
Then you mix those two under pressure which effectively dissolves the gas in the water. If you just mix them without the pressure you won’t be able to push the gas particles between the water particles and your drink will not be sparkling.
When you open a bottle or can you remove the seal and gas is lost. Leaving the drink out open for longer and over time all the dissolved gas will dissipate.

So why no tablets? It’s just not physically feasible to throw in a tablet and dissolve the gas so that it will stay “inside” the water. 55PSI = approx 3.8bar is needed to leave enough gas inside the water to have a serving pressure of 12PSI = approx. 0.8bar (1 bar is generally atmospheric pressure).