Question

What happened to the balloon when it was placed on the bottle with the baking soda and vinegar and why.

Answer 1

Answer:

The ballon would be inflated. The reason is that the sodium bicarbonate in baking soda reacts with acetic acid in vinegar to produce gas.

Explanation:

The main component of baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, ${\rm Na_{2}CO_{3}}$.

Vinegar is mostly a solution of acetic acid ${\rm CH_{3}COOH}$ in water.

Acids such as acetic acid react with carbonate salts. One of the products of such reactions is carbon dioxide ${\rm CO_{2}}$, a gas.

In this question, when the acetic acid in vinegar reacts with sodium bicarbonate in the baking soda, the following reaction would occur:

$\begin{aligned}& {\rm Na_{2}CO_{3}}\, (aq) + 2\, {\rm CH_{3}COOH}\, (aq) \\ &\to 2\, {\rm CH_{3}COONa}\, (aq) + {\rm CO_{2}}\, (g)\end{aligned}$.

The ${\rm CO_{2}}$ produced would then inflate the ballon placed on the opening of the bottle.