Use Vinegar and Baking Soda to Blow Up a Balloon!

1/8/2014

Vinegar and baking soda are things you probably see in your own home. But did you know you can use
them to blow up a balloon? When you put vinegar and baking soda together, you get a chemical
reaction, and this chemical reaction produces carbon dioxide gas.

A chemical reaction happens when one set of substances (called the reactants) transforms into different substances (called the products). When scientists talk or write about chemical reactions, they usually write them like this:

Reactants --------------> Products

Chemical reactions happen everywhere, all around us.  When you digest your food, your body performs chemical reactions to turn your food into energy. When you sit beside a campfire and enjoy its warmth, you are being warmed by a chemical reaction. Sometimes these chemical reactions happen slowly, but sometimes they are fast and violent.  One type of chemical reaction happens between acids and bases.

An acid is a substance that releases hydrogen ions (usually written as H+) when mixed in solution (that is, when it is in liquid form, like when you mix it in water).  Hydrogen is just one of the building blocks that make up lots of different substances, but with acids this hydrogen ion wants to separate from
the rest of the building blocks, and go into the water.  This means that when you mix an acid in water, it will push part of itself –the hydrogen—into the water, like this:

Acid-H -------------> Acid- + H+

This released H+ is what makes this substance an acid. One acid you may be familiar with is citric acid, which we find in lemon juice.  If you’ve ever tasted lemon juice, you know what an acid tastes
like...very sour!

A base can be thought of as the opposite of an acid.  Often, it is a substance that, if mixed in water, can take the hydrogen (H+) ions back out of solution. So, while the acid is putting H+into the solution, the base is taking them away:

Acid-H + Base -------------------> Acid- + Base-H

The hydrogen ions jump from the acid to the base, and in the process other things are made. For this experiment, we are using acetic acid (vinegar) and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). This reaction will
look like this:

Baking Soda + Vinegar  -----------------> Carbon Dioxide + Water + Sodium acetate

Or as a chemist would write:

NaHCO3   + CH3COOH ------------------> CO2 (gas) + H2O  +  CH3COONa

Don’t let this scare you! This just means that two different substances come together, and when they do they produce some new substances. One of them is a gas, which will come out as bubbles or foam. This means when vinegar and baking soda are combined, some new things will be made, and one of them is carbon dioxide gas.

If you need a little more help, try thinking about it like this:

The vinegar (acid) and the baking soda (base) are like two towers made up of
bricks:

When we mix them together, the baking soda takes one of the bricks--the H+--from the vinegar:

But now, the baking soda tower is not stable, so it falls apart! After it has fallen apart, what it turns into is water and carbon dioxide gas!

These are the products of the reaction!  The vinegar has lost H+, and becomes acetate, which pairs with
the sodium from the baking soda (the sodium is just floating around in the watery liquid, but it likes to hang out with acetate!).  This carbon dioxide will escape into the air as bubbles or foam, and it is this gas you can use to blow up a balloon!

TRY IT!!

1.     Measure 1 teaspoon of baking soda into a balloon.

2.     Add 4 tablespoons of vinegar into a small soda bottle.

3.     Carefully stretch the mouth of the balloon over the opening of the bottle.

4.     Lift the balloon, and shake the baking soda into the bottle so that it mixes with the vinegar in the bottle.

5.     Watch as the CO2 gas produced by the chemical reaction between the acetic acid in the vinegar and the sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) blows up the balloon!

6.     When the balloon stops growing, measure how wide the balloon is with a ruler or a tape measure.

QUESTIONS:

How large did the balloon get?

What happens if you double the amount of baking soda and vinegar? (That is, try adding 2
teaspoons of baking soda in the balloon and 8 tablespoons of vinegar in the bottle.) Will the balloon be twice as big? Write down what you think will happen.

Try the same experiment again, adding 2 teaspoons of baking soda to the balloon and 8 tablespoons of vinegar to the bottle.

How big does the balloon get when you double the amount of baking soda and vinegar?

Were you right about how big the balloon would get?

What happens if you change the amount of baking soda, or the amount of vinegar?

TRY THIS:
Add one teaspoon of baking soda to 8 tablespoons of vinegar. How big does the
balloon get?

Add two teaspoons of baking soda to 4 tablespoons of
vinegar. How big does the balloon get now?

CHALLENGE YOUR FRIENDS!!

Who can make their balloon blow up biggest? Challenge your friends to a contest, and see who can make the biggest balloon. Try different amounts of vinegar and baking soda. What combination of vinegar and baking soda produce the largest balloon?

60 Comments

sombody link

4/8/2015 10:23:04 am

cool tried it why does it not inflate as much as lemon juice

Dr. E

4/8/2015 11:17:27 am

If you've tried lemon juice and baking soda and had better luck, it may be because the pH of lemon juice (the measure of how acidic it is) is lower than vinegar: typical white vinegar has a pH of 2.4, while fresh lemon juice has a pH of 2 (the lower the number, the more acidic the liquid). However, if you used some type of vinegar other than distilled white vinegar, you should try this type of vinegar to get a well inflated balloon! In our tests, the distilled white vinegar performed better than any other acid.

Jennifer link

12/4/2017 01:22:41 pm

It is possible to try it with Apple Cider Vinegar instead of Insulated Vinegar?

Anthony link

12/14/2015 10:55:22 am

Who discovered the chemical reaction of baking soda and vinegar??

Dr. E link

12/15/2015 08:41:57 am

This is a very good question! While first accounts of someone actually mixing vinegar and baking soda cannot be located (at least I cannot locate one), it must have been after 1850, since that's when baking soda (also known as sodium bicarbonate) was first introduced. Its first use was as a chemical leavening agent, used by bakers to make bread lighter and softer because of the gas it releases. Since acid reacts with the baking soda to release more gas, probably it was a baker who tried adding vinegar, buttermilk (which may be substituted by "souring" milk with vinegar), wine, or some other acid in order to get a fluffier loaf.

Liz

3/22/2016 03:33:19 am

Does the C02 become a corrosive in this experiment?
Is its corrosiveness contained in the glass bottle while the gas inflates the balloon?
What I'm trying to determine is: Is this experiment dangerous in any way to children and will it cause the balloon to burst? If the balloon bursts will it cause damage to anything in the room or is it just gas escaping the balloon? Is there any risidual to the gas? Or is that left behind in the glass bottle?

Dr. E

3/22/2016 07:44:27 am

The CO2 in this experiment does not become corrosive. The gas is contained within the balloon and bottle for the duration of the experiment, and if you allow the bottle to sit inflated for a period of time the gas should release slowly. I have never heard of the balloon bursting, but if it does it will just release some leftover baking soda and non-corrosive CO2 gas. Over time you may notice some break down of the balloon due to excess vinegar, but this would only be if you left the experiment set up for weeks.

Rich

3/27/2016 09:37:40 pm

Is there a predictable relationship between the volume of vinegar and gas produced? For example..How much vinegar would be needed to generate 200 liters of gas? What would the pressure be of the gas? If a certain pressure of gas was needed, would the volume become smaller as the pressure increased?

Dr. E

3/28/2016 09:42:06 am

There is indeed a predictable relationship between the quantity of vinegar used and the gas produced. Let’s look at the chemical equation as stated in the blog above:

NaHCO3 + CH3COOH

reacts to form

CO2 (gas) + H2O + CH3COONa

This chemical formula shows us that one molecule of vinegar reacting with one molecule of baking soda will yield one molecule of CO2 gas. If we convert molecules to moles, it is the same: one mole of vinegar and one mole of baking soda yield one mole of gas (one mole is one Avogadro’s number of molecules, or 6.022 x 10^23 molecules) . We may consider CO2 to be an ideal gas under these conditions (that is, a gas whose molecules occupy virtually no space and have no interactions with other compounds). We know that one mole of an ideal gas occupies 22.4 Liters of volume. We also know from before that one mole of vinegar will yield one mole of gas. We can calculate the molar mass of vinegar (approximately 60 grams per mole of compound), and we can look up its density (approximately 1.01 g/mL). This means that one mole of vinegar will be about 59.4 mL, or approximately 4 tablespoons. In order to react vinegar and baking soda to yield 200 Liters of gas, you would need to completely react 8.9 moles of vinegar, approximately 530 mL, or 2.24 cups. Remember in order to get this much gas you will need to react the vinegar completely, thus you will need an excess of baking soda. I would use about 10 moles of baking soda, or 840 grams.

Now to your question about pressure. We are assuming CO2 is an ideal gas under these conditions, so it should obey the ideal gas law, which states that PV=nRT. That is, pressure x volume = number of moles of gas x ideal gas constant (8.3145 J/mol K) x the absolute temperature. From this relationship, we can see that V = nRT/P, thus as the pressure increases at constant temperature, the volume will go down.

Rich

3/28/2016 04:22:20 pm

Wow - thanks so much Dr. E. This brings back memories of my physics classes. I have ordered a 200 liter bag and will get the vinegar and baking soda and give it a shot. I am really excited. If this all works I will let you know. The application is off the wall and if it works I will patent it. So lets see. Thanks again.

Dr. E

3/28/2016 08:49:55 pm

There is one more thing you need to be aware of, Rich, especially if you are going to use this for a specific application. Vinegar as you purchase it off the shelf in the grocery store is only 5% acetic acid, and it is this acetic acid that is the reactant in your reaction. Thus if you need 2.24 cups for the reaction (I incorrectly referred to it as vinegar in my original reply), this is the volume of pure acetic acid you need. If you use store purchased vinegar for this, you would need much more--in fact you will need about 45 cups of store purchased vinegar, or 2.8 gallons. However, if you are using this for a specific industrial application, I highly recommend you use a purveyor of laboratory chemicals for both your acetic acid (glacial acetic acid is the pure stuff) and your sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). I recommend companies such as Alfa Aesar, Sigma-Aldrich and VWR to find your pure chemicals.

All the best!

Dr. E

3/29/2016 09:55:53 am

I did some tests with this in my lab today...and you will need some water with the reaction as well. Without water for dissolution, pure acetic acid will not release it's hydrogen ion, and the reaction will not proceed. I would recommend at least 25% water in your acetic acid solution. This means your original 2.24 cups will need to be about 3 total: 2.24 cups glacial acetic acid and 3/4 cup water. I would use distilled to be safe.

Thanks for your interesting question; I'm learning from it also!

Dr. E

Rich

3/29/2016 11:15:22 am

OK - thanks again Dr. E. I have been watching videos on Youtube of this experiment and the conversion to gas is too slow for my application. I intend to do tests myself but I am traveling so am limited to hotels and planes. I get the feeling they would not appreciate me testing this out in the isle! What would need to be done to get to the 200 liters of gas in about 4 seconds and is this possible at all? Would the glacial acetic acid speed up the production of the gas? Would the addition of something else help accelerate the production of 200 liters of gas? And one more question. Once the gas is produced, how long will it stay in this form? I will need it to be stable for about 5 minutes before it might start to reduce in volume.

Beverly link

7/1/2016 09:09:16 pm

Is it safe to make it bigger?
What I mean is the balloon

Dr. E

7/2/2016 12:23:36 pm

Hi Beverly,

In the years I've been doing this, no balloon has EVER exploded. The worst your balloon will probably ever do is pop off the bottle and go flying around the room. So go ahead and push it to the limits, just don't hold the balloon onto the bottle!

Dr. E

Cas Dornan

3/22/2017 01:19:56 am

Hi
We just did this for a uni subject but I wanted to add a different response to others and as you stated " take it to the limit" but was wondering if you could provide a safe starting amount of vinegar as I would be doing this with children (considering safety concerns of course).

Dr. E

3/22/2017 11:39:13 am

If you want a safe volume of vinegar and baking soda to start, my recommendation is 1/2 cup of vinegar to 1 tablespoon baking soda. Use this in a 500 mL bottle, and use a 9 inch (22.8 cm) balloon. Be sure the balloon is securely around the neck of the bottle!

Dr. E

Vanz link

7/27/2016 02:01:52 am

Does any1 know why the inflating stopped?

Dr. E

7/27/2016 01:30:50 pm

Good question Vanz! The inflating stopped because the chemical reaction stopped. When either all the acetic acid or all the sodium bicarbonate is consumed by the reaction, the reaction will stop and not produce any more carbon dioxide, so the balloon will not inflate any more.

rens

8/30/2016 08:22:31 am

why does the sodium acetate is still stable?

Dr. E

8/30/2016 09:15:12 am

Sodium acetate is stable because the system is in a lower energy state thermodynamically. This occurs because the change from acetic acid to sodium acetate increases the entropy of the system, and thus has a positive change in Gibbs energy. Further change to the system is not favored.

Linus

9/25/2016 02:16:19 am

how do you measure how much CO2 is produced using the inflated balloon?

Dr. E

9/25/2016 11:39:30 am

That's a good question, Linus. You could try to predict about how much gas would be produced by using the chemical formula for the reaction, then calculating how many moles of gas would be produced by reacting one mole of vinegar with one mole of baking soda.

There is a predictable relationship between the quantity of vinegar used and the gas produced. Let’s look at the chemical equation as stated in the blog above:

NaHCO3 + CH3COOH

reacts to form

CO2 (gas) + H2O + CH3COONa

This chemical formula shows us that one molecule of acetic acid reacting with one molecule of baking soda will yield one molecule of CO2 gas. If we convert molecules to moles, it is the same: one mole of acetic acid and one mole of baking soda yield one mole of gas (one mole is one Avogadro’s number of molecules, or 6.022 x 10^23 molecules) . We may consider CO2 to be an ideal gas under these conditions (that is, a gas whose molecules occupy virtually no space and have no interactions with other compounds). We know that one mole of an ideal gas occupies 22.4 Liters of volume. We also know from before that one mole of acetic acid will yield one mole of gas. We can calculate the molar mass of acetic acid (approximately 60 grams per mole of compound), and we can look up its density (approximately 1.01 g/mL). This means that one mole of acetic acid will be about 59.4 mL, or approximately 4 tablespoons. However, vinegar is only about 5% acetic acid (the rest is water), so you would need to use 1.19 liters of vinegar to make this much gas. You would need then to react it with 1 mole of baking soda, or 84 grams. This should react completely to form the 22.4 liters of CO2 gas.

Alternatively, you could set up an apparatus to release the gas produced into a large, upside-down graduated vessel, such as a large graduated cylinder, which is completely submerged in water. I would recommend reacting the vinegar and baking soda in a large Erlenmeyer flask fitted with a rubber stopper and a thin hose leading into a large graduated cylinder submerged in a tank of water. The cylinder itself and the tank must be filled with water. When the gas is produced, it will form bubbles that will float up into the cylinder, displacing the water and showing the volume produced. Below is the link to a website showing the procedure

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Chem_p026.shtml#procedure

Best of luck!

Dr. E

Rogan link

1/6/2019 08:57:43 pm

so is we mix baking soda with vinegar
and put water in, does it do the same reaction?

Lyn

10/8/2016 01:34:20 pm

Would sodium acetate be a liquid or a solid or a gas?

Dr. E

10/8/2016 01:46:47 pm

Hi Lyn,

Sodium acetate is a salt dissolved in a liquid following the reaction. Evaporate all the liquid, and you will see the sodium acetate crystals!

Dr. E

Lala

12/5/2016 05:04:06 pm

What happens if you change the amount of baking soda, or the amount of vinegar?

Dr. E

12/5/2016 05:54:59 pm

That depends. The amount of gas produced by the reaction is always controlled by the ingredient present in a smaller quantity (the limiting reactant). For example, 1.19 liters of vinegar (at 5% acetic acid) should completely react with 84 grams of baking soda to yield 22.4 liters of carbon dioxide. If you reduce the amount of either baking soda or vinegar in this case, you will get less gas; however if you increase either one, the amount of gas will not change. For example, if you increased the vinegar to two liters, you still only have 84 grams of baking soda; the extra vinegar has no baking soda to react with and thus there is no extra gas produced.

On the other hand, if you start out with either of the ingredients in excess (a lot more than you need to completely react with the other ingredient), you will increase the gas by increasing the ingredient that is not in excess. For example, if you started out by reacting 50 grams of baking soda with 1.19 liters of vinegar, and you then add 30 more grams of baking soda, more gas will be produced because there will still be some unconsumed vinegar left to react with more baking soda.

I hope this helps!

Dr. E

Rikki

3/5/2017 05:36:25 pm

We did this experiment and decided to see if the size of the bottle effects the rate at which the balloon fills up. We used the same measurements of vinegar and baking soda in each bottle and lifted the balloons at the same time, the balloons filled up at the exact same rate to the exact same size. Why would this be? I thought that the smallest bottle would fill it faster because there is less space for the gas to travel to get to the balloon?

Dr. E

3/5/2017 06:15:17 pm

This is a great experiment you did! It sounds like the amount of vinegar and baking soda you used produced enough gas that the difference in the sizes of the bottles were insignificant compared to the amount of gas produced.

Say for example you have a 500 mL bottle and a 1 L bottle. Suppose you add half a cup of vinegar to each bottle, and one tablespoon of baking soda, the reaction should produce 2.24 Liters of gas. This is more than double even your larger bottle, so the rate of balloon filling may not be obviously different.

One way to test this again would be either to drastically reduce the amount of vinegar you use (say only 1/8 of a cup to one tablespoon baking soda), or use bottles that are much, much different in size. This should make the rate of balloon fill more noticeable. Also, you could try using different amounts of vinegar in the same size bottle while holding the baking soda constant, say 1/8 cup, 1/4 cup, and 1/2 cup in a 500 mL bottle with 1 tablespoon baking soda. This will produce different quantities of gas, which should allow the balloons to fill different amounts, and presumably at different rates.

Hope this helps!

Emerson

2/19/2018 12:01:49 am

I tried this and doubled the amount of vinegar while keeping the baking soda constant. The balloon got bigger and the reaction lasted longer. How is explained?

Dr. E

2/19/2018 12:49:33 am

Hi Emerson,
This means that the amount of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) you used in your first experiment was in excess of the amount of acetic acid. That is, the reaction used up all of the acetic acid in the vinegar, and there was still sodium bicarbonate left that had not reacted yet. This meant that when you doubled the amount of vinegar you used, there was still baking soda left to react with the acetic acid in the extra vinegar, and so the reaction lasted longer and produced more gas.

Hrithik Patel link

5/21/2017 12:34:20 am

what would be the density of the gas generated if we mixed 1 tbsp of baking soda with 40 ml of vinegar

Dr. E

10/11/2017 08:51:18 pm

In this case your limiting reagent will be your vinegar. 40 mL of vinegar is only 2 ml of acetic acid, since vinegar is only 5% acetic acid. 2 milliliters of acetic acid corresponds to a boat 33 millimoles, so you will get 33 millimoles of carbon dioxide gas produced. Since the carbon dioxide should be behaving close to an ideal gas under normal atmospheric temperature and pressure, this reaction will yield approximately 740 milliliters of gas.

Hope this helps!

Dr. E

Hrithik Patel

5/21/2017 12:36:27 am

what will the density of gas generated if 1 tbsp of baking soda is mixed with 40 ml of vinegar??

sam

10/10/2017 11:56:49 pm

What happens when a balloon is tied to a bottle containing baking soda and vinegar is mixed

Dr. E

10/11/2017 08:37:33 pm

Hi Sam,

If you mix the vinegar and baking soda while the opening of the balloon is stretched over the mouth of the bottle, the balloon should inflate. This happens because the reaction between the vinegar and baking soda produces carbon dioxide gas!

Dr. E

yuuta link

10/17/2017 10:31:44 am

Riches idea was super awsome. I like rich.

John D link

10/25/2017 03:55:30 pm

I would like to know how created the info on this project

Dr. E

12/4/2017 01:32:48 pm

The information in this blog was written by Dr. E, and the images and chemical equations we're created using PowerPoint.

Erica

12/13/2017 01:08:26 am

This a great experiment for elementary school children. This is the second time my daughter and I have done this experiment for a science fair project. The first time we won 1st place in the third grade science fair. This year we are making a few changes. Fingers crossed!!!

lols

2/5/2018 07:55:55 pm

what is the scientific explaination of the experiment Dr.E?

Dr. E

2/6/2018 08:36:44 am

At its simplest, the explanation is that a chemical reaction produces gas, and the gas blows up the balloon.

Neoncat101

2/12/2018 08:25:30 pm

Why does it get cold Dr. E?

Dr. E

2/12/2018 08:37:57 pm

Good question! I've gotten this question at quite a few times, and the answer is that the reaction between vinegar and baking soda is an endothermic reaction. That means it absorbs heat from the surroundings in order for the reaction to take place. Other types of reactions are called exothermic; this means they release heat into the surroundings as the reaction, or other chemical change, takes place.

scienceperson

2/17/2018 02:12:46 pm

If you leave the balloon on the bottle for a while the balloon gets sort of sucked into the balloon. Why does that happen?

Dr. E

2/17/2018 02:19:56 pm

While I've never observed this, it is likely that there was a leak between the balloon and the bottle, which allowed the gas pressure to drop. This may have allowed the balloon to retract somewhat into the bottle.

Plm

3/1/2018 01:14:10 pm

Would the balloon deflate after you blow it up

Plm

3/1/2018 01:21:24 pm

Would the balloon deflate after you blow it up DR.E

Dr. E

3/1/2018 01:21:32 pm

Hi Plm,
Yes, the balloon will eventually deflate over time.

crys

4/6/2018 11:59:42 am

who was the exact peson that discovered this experiment ?
thank you

Dr. E

4/6/2018 02:38:24 pm

This is a great question, crys. While it's not clear who first figured out that mixing vinegar and baking soda together would produce gas (although there are records of the Native Americans using pearl ash--an early form of baking soda--to leaven bread, which relies on the reaction between an acid and a base), the first person on record that began to experiment with combining acids and bases was the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier in about 1776. Lavoisier made many contributions to chemistry; many consider him the father of modern chemistry. You can read more about him by visiting https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/antoine-laurent-lavoisier.

Hope this helps!

Aiea pey

1/25/2019 11:59:13 pm

Does the size of the container affect how big the balloon get?

Dr. E

1/26/2019 09:07:55 am

Hi Aiea,

It does, to a certain extent. The more of your reactants (the vinegar and baking soda) you are able to put into the container, the more of the final products (water and gas) you will get. Because you can put more reactants in a larger container, you could use it to make the balloon bigger. This is only true if you use more reactants, however.

1/28/2019 08:36:48 am

how much vinegar do you need for it to explode

Dr. E

1/28/2019 10:55:29 am

How much vinegar you'll need for the balloon to explode will depend on how big the balloon can get before it explodes. If you use a very big bottle (say, a 2 liter soda bottle) and a very small balloon, then fill the bottle half way with vinegar and manage to put a cup of baking soda in, then get the very small balloon on top and hold it there so it doesn't fly away, you might get the balloon to explode. However, I've done this a lot of times, and I've never seen a balloon explode!

Alexa

2/21/2019 03:15:23 pm

Hi! Great experiment. Did you measure by any chance how big the balloon got after adding the different amounts vinegar and baking soda? I need to do the same one for class, and need to find out the volume of the balloon and the diameter of the balloon after three different trails: one with the same amount of vinegar and baking soda, one with more vinegar than baking soda, and one with more baking soda than vinegar. Thanks!

No Name

2/27/2019 06:37:35 pm

Hi Dr. E,
I am just a kid, so don't judge me is this question is stupid. But from what I understand, the baking soda and the vinager make carbon dioxide, and because there is not as much pressure in a gas (Carbon Dioxide) than baking soda and vinager. So, the gas has more volume than Baking Soda and Vinager separated. Is that right?

Dr. E

2/27/2019 06:47:29 pm

This is a very good question. The reason that the carbon dioxide is a gas is because they are small, simple molecules that do not interact with each other very much (that is, they don't want to hold on to each other). That means they can move very fast and get very far away from each other, forming a gas. Because the molecules of a gas like to be farther away from each other, they take up more space, meaning the gas has more volume.

Hope this helps!

Lia

2/20/2020 02:47:53 pm

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Use Vinegar and Baking Soda to Blow Up a Balloon!

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