How is carbon dioxide suspended in soda pop? Clearly not much of it remains dissolved in the sugary water for long at one earth atmosphere but how is it combined at all? Is it quickly injected just proir to capping the container? Why is club soda more volatile? Just more Co2? Does the sugar in coke, etc. act as a stabilizer to some degree? Thanks.
I have worked with machines for the manufacture of carbonated beverages. There are several ways…
First thing to take into account is that higher pressure and lower temperature facilitate gas dissolution. So you can just cool the beverage (to just a few degress above freezing) and pass it through a pressurized container where CO2 bubbles up. From here it goes to the filler. The bottle/can is filled under pressure too. only for a split second is the pressure removed and the bottle is immediately capped. Still, this is tricky and you can get too much foam which will empty the bottle.
Newer machines do not require so much cooling, which saves a lot of energy. For one they extract dissolved air under vacuum. Dissolved air will cause the CO2 to be expelled and will cause foam (as any kid knows after shaking the soda bottle). Then the CO2 is injected in a venturi so the process is faster and leads to better dissolution. The catrbonated beverage, just like before, goes to a pressurised tank and then to the filler. Only for the split second before the bottle is capped is pressure released.
You can call your local Coke or Pepsi bottler and they will give you a tour of the plant where you can see all this and more.
Because it contains sodium bicarbonate as well as CO2.