Why does vinegar make baking soda fizz?

Answer 1

What happens is a chemical reaction. Vinagar - acetic acid Baking soda - sodium bicarbonate you are producing sodium acetate with water if you keep adding more vinegar on the baking soda (search "hot ice" on Google) note that vinager is not pure but only 5 percent acetic acid the rest is water. for the best fizz use 1200 grams of vineager and 84 grams of NaHCO2 (baking soda) this is one mole of each obviously you can change the proportions. The reason this makes a perfect reaction is because that makes one C2H4O2 molecule react with every NaHCO2 molecule. The bi-products are CO2 H2O and NaC2H2O2

Answer 2

Actually it is the vinegar that makes the baking soda fizz. The vinegar is an acid (Acetic Acid CH3COOH) and the baking soda (Sodium Bicarbonate NaHCO3) is an alkali. The two react together to make Sodium Acetate CH3COONa, water (H2O) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2). The Carbon Dioxide is a gas and this is what causes the fizz.

The fizz though is the formation of carbon dioxide gas.

Bicarbonate is HCO3-. The reaction:

HCO3- + H+ (from the vinegar) ---> H2CO3 (carbonic acid)

Carbonic acid quickly break into water and carbon dioxide:

H2CO3 ---> H2O + CO2

Hence the fizzing.