Okay, this is probably a dumb question, but it aroused my curiosity. I was at lunch and had a bottle of Pepsi and some M&Ms. Boredom overcame me, and I dumped a pair of M&Ms in the Pepsi … first it made a pretty big bubble, then started fizzing pretty steadily, for a good five minutes. It appears that the Pepsi ate the shell off the M&Ms, and that’s what caused the fizzing, but … WHY? Anything else that fizzes in Pepsi. I know supposedly Coke can clean old pennies. Is this similar?
I’ll have to try this out at home. Until then, one possible explanation is that the surfaces of the M&M act as nucleation sites for the carbonation bubbles in the soda. Try dumping salt into your Pepsi (or beer) and you should get impressive fizzing. This isn’t a chemical reaction, but the Pepsi ought to dissolve the shell eventually, just as water will.
Just a quick off-the-cuff answer. I’ll have to check it out. Pepsi IS acidic, but it’s not clear to me that acis should react with that sugar coating.
“Nucleation sites” sounds good to me. If you sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar into any diet soda, you get a huge fizzy effect.
One time I was dying for a Coke, and all we had was Diet…Being 10 years old, I figured the only difference was the sugar content, so I ingeniously dropped a spoon of sugar in. The soda fizzed out of the can and all over the counter and floor. Then I drank some water.