this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023

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If I add baking soda to lemon juice and water or use carbonated water is the carbon the same as the CO2 in the atmosphere? (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/nostupidquestions

30 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I was thinking of making lemonade and was wondering if it would let CO2 into the atmosphere or not.

all 31 comments

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Yes, except don't do this.

The reaction is

NaHCO~3~ + CH~3~COOH -> Na^+^ + CH3COO^-^ + + H~2~O + CO~2~

If you know how to read those. Sure the CO2 is the same if you let the vessel pressurise but that sodium ion and ethanoate isn't! Sodium salts taste well very salty. It'll ruin the lemonade

edit: oh also if climate. If you burn a tonne of coal that's 3 tonnes of CO2 in what I like to call "nature's fume hood" (don't worry I'm sure it's consequence free). We currently burn about 15 billion tonnes of coal alone per year. When I carbonate a litre of water around 5 grams dissolves I think? so if we have every single person on earth a litre of fizzy water each day we would emit 120 million tonnes of co2 a year. Which is 1% of coal alone, which is less than half our emissions of CO2 for power alone, and co2 isn't the only factor in warming.

So even in the absolutely insane case of a planet of fizzy water addicts where even babies are chugging the stuff it wouldn't matter at all.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good point Salty lemonade does not sound very nice.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah I tried this once as a kid haha. You neutralise a bunch of the acid so it isn't crisp and sharp, instead it tastes like mildly lemon salt.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

oh sorry brain fart, replace ethanoic acid with citric, same difference really it'll still be salty. I thought you meant adding vinegar and bicard like highschool science to make co2.

If you want though you can generate the co2 that way separately and pump the gas into the lemonade. That'll not ruin the flavour

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can edit your comment if you're so inclined.

I appreciate all of this chemistry trivia ❤️

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Edit my comment? Erase my mistake?

Tell me young one, can a man be unkilled? a lie untold? a promise unbroken?

Nay, I have done a fell thing and shall wear the stain of it forever.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I assumed you a chemist, what a blunder.

Clearly you're a warrior poet with a passion for chemistry.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm actually the shards of what was once a bad physicist who dropped out of a PhD because they're hard and I'm brittle.

I should've done chemistry though, firstly because it is cool and involves more than crying at your desk, secondly because I would actually have a job, thirdly because if I didn't have a job I could at least make some drugs to cope with the stress, and fourthly because if the government came for my coping drugs I could make bombs to throw at them till they left me alone.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Nice, I dropped out of a poli sci degree for very similar reasons.

On the bright side you don't need a PhD to produce drugs and bombs, and those things might help with the whole desk crying conundrum.

[–] xkforce 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Actually adding (small amounts of) baking soda and an acid to drinks is a fairly well traveled (and old fashioned) means of carbonating them. The contribution of the Sodium to the taste of the drink usually isn't very high unless you're adding more than is needed for carbonation and can be overcome with the addition of a sweetener

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Really? But to get decent carbonation you would need to add a lot. Like 15 grams or so because dissolution is not very efficient, most the co2 is going to pressurise the headspace

[–] xkforce 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The amount required depends on the volume being carbonated. 1L of CO2 requires about 3.5 grams of Sodium bicarbonate which is about a teaspoon. I use Potassium bicarbonate (usually used in home brewing for controlling pH) instead because 1) it works just as well and 2) it boosts the amount of Potassium rather than Sodium in my diet. As for headspace, you only leave enough that the reaction doesnt cause the contents to splatter everywhere before you can recap the bottle. The contents should be sweet enough that it doesnt matter if theres a couple grams of a Sodium or Potassium salt mixed in which isnt hard to do if you use a reasonable amount of sweetener eg. table sugar, fruit juice, stevia etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fair enough, I don't drink many sweet drinks and tried to carbonate soda water that way.

Re head space, you also need to make sure you're leaving enough when you open it. You're only very lightly carbonating with 3.5 g. Most soda water and softdrinks have a head pressure of around 70 psi, the bottles can actually spike to around 150 when dropped which is sort of terrifying. Without the addition of all the crap they add to slow nucleation bottles can erupt very merily when opened!

When making my own soda water (I just hook bottles up to a regulated stream of co2 and shake) I do actually add some but only about 1/8 of a teaspoon per litre.

Making things slightly salty makes them nice and I find it helps reduce some of the harsh acid taste the carboxylic acid. Also it seems to modify how the bubbles form which is interesting. Maybe a surface tension of water effect? I'm unsure there.

[–] xkforce 1 points 1 year ago

Tbh I usually dont let it sit long so the fact that it isnt as carbonated is less of an issue. That said, there is also fermented soda which uses wine yeast (you can use baking yeast but this is arguably less ideal) and sugar to generate the CO2 instead of a bicarbonate base and acid. This you can essentially let sit to carbonate as much as you want but like all common ferments, it does generate a small amount of alcohol and does require dechlorination of the water you use. It also needs sugar to work while soda stream and the soda/acid method dont care how sugary the soda is.

[–] dyathinkhesaurus 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yes. Carbon dioxide is carbon dioxide. But the volume you'll be releasing wouldn't even show up as a 10th decimal rounding error, so I wouldn't worry. Just breathing will release more.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Also CO2 is a natural part of the carbon cycle. It's still needed and used by the nature around you, and the little CO2 you produce by existing is ok. It's the excess CO2 produced by our modern lifestyle that's the issue.

Advocate for change on those fronts, but enjoy your fizzy lemonade @gamers_[email protected]

[–] themusicman 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You've unintentionally stolen a classic climate denier line, just FYI

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Fair point, I'll edit in the rest of it

It seemed like OP was uncomfortable with the little CO2 they'd produce by existing, so it felt relevant to point out.

Excess CO2 is still an issue

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah but we have too much of it now lol.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Not to mention that CO2 was previously captured before you can even put it into your drink. taps temple knowingly

[–] CobblerScholar 1 points 1 year ago

And any motor exponentially more than that

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Sure it will, technically. It's just a zillionth of anything remotely significant, so don't worry about it.

A bottle's worth of "carbonation" is probably offset by a decent fart, let alone the perfectly normal breathing you're doing on a day to day basis.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Carbonated water and the byproduct of baking soda reacting with an acid both off gas carbon dioxide. Mixing carbonated water with lemonade will produce slightly fizzy lemonade. Adding baking soda to lemonade will just release the gas into the atmosphere unless you do it in a closed container like a soda bottle which is potentially extremely unsafe if you don’t know how much baking soda to add. Adding baking soda in a closed container may carbonate the lemonade because the CO2 dissolves into solution instead of escaping, but it’s also likely to explode if the container can’t withstand the pressure or has a defect.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So Kind of like a Kombucha bottle if you don't open it every day due to excess gas.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I offer you 3 better alternatives to daily burping for fermentation.

Good: Latex balloon with a pinhole in it. Stretch the neck over the opening of the container, when uninflated the pinhole is too small to let contaminates in, as the off gassing inflates the balloon the pinhole expands and the gasses are released.

Pros- cheap, latex balloons are ubiquitous, not opening the container reduces the risk of infection

Cons- stretching and wear to balloon prevents reuse, risk of tearing or slipping allowing too much gas to escape and contaminates to enter the container, vigorous fermentation may fill balloon with liquid/foam or cause a blowout

Better: Airlock

Pros- easiest option, airlock will be designed for use with container with no modification or customisation, least interaction needed generally no action will needed during fermentation but occasionally airlock may need refilled, resistant to blowout and fluid/foam leakage

Cons- if there is a blowout it will be spectacular and potentially dangerous, can be difficult to find and expensive if not using one of a few standard types of fermentation containers,

Best: Blow off tube, run a tube from the opening of the container to a container of water with the fermenter end having an airtight seal and the water end submerged. Water level must be below the level of the liquid in the fermenter.

Pros- blowout proof, resistant to fluid/foam leakage and leakage is generally contained in the water container, all materials are available at hardware or craft stores and at most big box stores

Cons- creating an airtight seal can be tricky for non-standard containers, requires the most space and materials

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

yes but remember you breathe out co2 all the time. Making a fizzy drink is way lower than many other things you do. As one person im going back and forth on would say going vegan would massively lower the amount of co2 your responsible for putting in the atmosphere and actually just not eating beef would give you the majority of that lessening. walking/biking(even electric)/public trans instead of driving would also be huge. even if the driving was in an ev. Not using bitcoin and its ilk is big to (in absolute terms its only so big but for what it does its a massive cost in energy). The single biggest thing a person can do is not have kids although thats a big ask but the co2 of most eco friendly folks is going to still not be low enough if you have a kid and he has a kid and so on. So for example the average french person is about 5 tons of carbon a year while the average north american is 3x that. so you start adding capita and thats way more carbon. Anyway worry about the fizzy drink is sorta a penny wise pound foolish type of thing as far as global warming goes and honestly its not really causing any more of general pollution which is an issue even if we found some unlimited energy source to do sequestration.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks I have been vegan since 2018. Though I was interested in Bitcoin a few years ago before I learned how bad it was.
If I wanted kids I would look into adopting but I have heard that is really complicated.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

yeah. few folks are going to be competing with those low carbon chops.

[–] Nibodhika 1 points 1 year ago

Not using bitcoin and its ilk is big to (in absolute terms its only so big but for what it does its a massive cost in energy).

I mean, yes, and no, Bitcoin actually produces less CO2 than the alternative, it's just that people won't ever stop using the alternative so all of that CO2 will continue being created. People have this wrong idea that Bitcoin replaces credit cards, when in fact what it replaces is money. And Money is a CO2 hell, it's made of cotton, so you need to add the CO2 cost of producing, transporting and processing the cotton, add the cost of manufacturing the inks, printing the actual money, transporting it again, then all of the CO2 cost in keeping that safe, moving it from one place to another, etc, etc, etc... Yes, Bitcoin and the like consume a lot of electricity, but most server farms are in zones where electricity is very cheap, and that usually means green energy (hydroelectric, wind and solar plants produce a lot of surplus energy, so they sell it very cheap, which is why you'll see most server farms for Bitcoin are located near such plants), but Bitcoin could process Visa level amount of transactions with that same amount of energy, i.e. it doesn't need a certain amount of energy to process a single payment it needs a certain amount of energy to process a block of transactions, regardless of block size, which means that theoretically Bitcoin could replace all of the money in the world using the same amount of electricity it's using now. And the hardware for the server farms could theoretically be old GPUs that would otherwise become e-waste.

Having said that there are technical limitations and a long debate on how to better scale Bitcoin, and old cards will never be as profitable as new ones so it's unlikely that old cards would get used for mining, but they could if Bitcoin (or others) were designed around that idea. At the end of the day my point is that most people don't consider the scale of what Bitcoin is replacing.

[–] rammjet 2 points 1 year ago

yup