Essay On Vinegar And Baking Soda

What does happen when you mix vinegar and baking soda? While your immediate answer may be "it fizzes and turns white" there is much science behind the concept. You will find that what it "looks like" is not nearly everything behind what really happens. Baking soda and vinegar form a completely different compound (when two or more elements combine; broken down by chemical changes like adding energy as heat or an electric current), which has it’s own properties. From the particle model of matter to the way that a chemical reaction is represented in an equation, the answer is definitely complicated.

So what exactly is matter? Matter is anything that has mass and takes up space (blue book). The particle model, however, is different for the four types of matter. For solids, the molecules can only vibrate, but solids have a definite shape and volume. For liquids the molecules are able to slide past one another and has definite volume. Both gas and plasma don't have a definite shape or volume, but in gas the molecules can move freely and bump into each other, and in plasma the molecules have completely broken apart. These molecules are too small to see and are different for every object. So what do particles have to do with vinegar and baking soda reacting? Well acids and bases are made of elements. These elements are made of atoms which are made of molecules. So when you get down to it, the reaction between acids and bases all depend on the particles of the object.

When you mix baking soda and vinegar you get what’s called a chemical reaction. A chemical reaction is the process by which one or more substances change to produce one or more different substances (blue book). In this case, you would be mixing an acid and a base. The tw...

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...ubstances that have different properties than the properties of the reactants (blue book). Most atoms form bonds with valence electrons only, which means the number of valence electrons determines if an atom will form a bond (eight electrons are usually unreactive, while fewer than eight tend to bond more often). Atoms bond to fill their outermost energy level. They would either lose share or gain an electron. In baking soda and vinegar, you may be wondering what bonding has to do with a chemical reaction. Well, in order for a chemical reaction to take place a bond must be broken. This happens because molecules are always moving which means if they bump with enough energy, the bond will break. The atoms then rearrange and new bonds form to make new substances (blue book). So behind the aesthetic view of the “white fizz,” there is always a scientific explanation.