Okay so my girlfriend and I just noticed that when we put a metal straw into a pop can of ginger ale, the pop begins to fizz again and only up through the straw. Can anyone explain?
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*Probably* what’s happening is this:
There’s carbon dioxide dissolved in the soda. It wants to be out of the soda. But it turns out that it’s very hard for a gas to just decide to leave a liquid; it’s much, much easier to join a pre-existing bubble or just escape through the top. And it’s hard to form a bubble in the middle of a liquid; it’s easier to form it on a surface – a rough surface.
The inside of the can is very smooth, but the surface of the straw is not. So when you insert the straw, lots and lots of bubbles form on its surface and rapidly grow larger.
Unless your straw is made of platinum or palladium, it is not a catalyst and no chemical reaction is occurring.
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