Bubbles

[hmmm_tea]

Having been reading up about Sparkling Wine for Unit 5 of my diploma, I've been thinking more and more about bubbles recently.

My current understanding (certainly with Sparkling Wine) is that the bubbles of CO2 in a bottle of Sparkling Wine are cause by the gas dissolving under pressure and then being released when the bottle is opened and the pressure released. So what causes drinks to fizz up when you shake them?

I've had some explanations for why this should happen, but I'm not happy I fully understand*.

Any bubble experts out there who would care to enlighten me?

* - that said it's not something essential for me to understand.

Comments

[mair_in_grenderich]

no idea, but if you drop a lump of sugar into a coffee, little bubbles will form as the sugar dissolves (presumably there are air gaps in the sugar lump that are opened up)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

When you shake the drink the liquid hits the sides of the container and shockwaves go through it that nucleate bubbles in their troughs of drink-molecule-density.

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

Presumably air bubbles introduced by the shaking would also help nucleate bubbles.

I'm not sure why shaking a full bottle, letting it settle down (so there are no visible bubbles), then opening it should be more fizzy than opening it undisturbed, but it seems to be.

[nina321.livejournal.com]

it's all pressure.
IT's trying to react, because the air is in the liquid, but there's no room for the gas to be given off because the bottle is full with the co2.
So, when you open it, there's suddenly more room so the reaction that's been trying to happen previously, now can, and with more air than before, and so is more violent.

<3 chemistry!

[nina321.livejournal.com]

Generally when there's some air in the bottle it reacts with the stuff to make the bubbles.
If you have a half empty (half full!) bottle and shake it, it will react with the available air in the empty half until all that air is gone.
After that it won't fizz any more but would continue to fizz once you'd opened it.

[coldclimate.livejournal.com]

Bubbles make my nose itch. DAMN THEIR BUBBILY EYES!