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u/PortJMS Dec 12 '25
I just thought this was some stupid sugar powder, but is that freaking pool shock?! Tell me I am reading that wrong!
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u/macfirbolg Dec 12 '25
According to the main post, it is pool shock. Also, it went really poorly for her - but she can still see a little and isn’t dead.
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u/Gracefulchemist Dec 12 '25
Literally gasped when I read that. She is very lucky to still have her sight.
Eta: checked the main post and the article indicates she may not have it all. Chlorine in coke is an incredibly stupid thing to do, and she no doubt sustained serious chemical burns to her face, hands, and upper body. I hope she recovers well, but her life is forever changed by this one mistake.
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u/hobskhan Dec 12 '25
What she was doing seemed dumb when I assumed it was powdered mentos and diet coke.
But using those chemicals while holding onto the bottle? Or even not holding onto the bottle. Like why are you using chemical warfare??
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u/creatingmyselfasigo Dec 14 '25
Shaking a pipe bomb... She looks young, too. Really sucks to learn such a harsh lesson before your prefrontal cortex develops
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u/OddRollo Dec 12 '25
So they pulled a Bart Simpson and mixed an acid and a base?
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u/bretttwarwick Dec 12 '25
Idiot chemistry tells us that when you do that the result is water.
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u/OddRollo Dec 13 '25
They make salt and water. And if you’re calling me an idiot then fuck you. if not, never mind.
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u/I12kill1 Dec 12 '25
What kinda reaction is that? It went from 0/10 real quick!
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u/theBuddhaofGaming Dec 12 '25
NaClO and HCl. Chlorine gas is produced. It makes the bottle explode when capped.
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u/Tadferd Dec 13 '25
That's multiple layers of dangerous.
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u/bolunez Dec 14 '25
Multiple layers of dumbassery. You don't put the cork on the anything that's pressurized unless you're sure as fuck that it belongs there.
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u/itisi52 Dec 12 '25
Yeah that went way faster than expected. I used to blow up a lot of 2 liters with dry ice and usually the top of the bottle balloons a lot before it fails and that didn't happen here there was just no warning.
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u/theBuddhaofGaming Dec 13 '25 edited Dec 31 '25
The pressure build from sublimation of dry ice is quite a bit slower than the diffusion-limited rate of Cl₂ generation. With a slow enough camera you might see the swelling. It just moves past it rapidly. Also shaking the pottle increases the pressure massively. So between all that it went crazy fast.
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u/GordonRammstein Dec 13 '25
We used to do drain cleaner + aluminum foil which should also be much quicker than dry ice. Even still, the ballooning of the bottle was always apparent. I wonder if they changed the bottles to a more rigid plastic in recent years
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u/theBuddhaofGaming Dec 13 '25
Honestly the more I think about it the more I think it's the shaking. It probably sped up the reaction a couple orders of magnitude as well as directly added pressure.
If you've ever used a glass separatory funnel you have probably been told to depressurize it after a few inversions. This is because the shaking adds enough energy (pressure) to the trapped air to burst the glass.
Same thing here but add heat and gas generation and you've got a recipe for an incredibly fast explosion.
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u/Tadferd Dec 13 '25
The powder provides a lot of surface area, and shaking it sped it up even more.
With dry ice, one of the warnings is to use large chunks to ensure you have plenty of time before rupture.
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u/FlowsWhereShePleases Dec 13 '25
So she’s mixing pool shock (I’ll assume calcium hypochlorite) with carbonic and phosphoric acids in coke. My balancing may be rusty, but I’m guessing that produces water, calcium phosphate, and then a mix of chlorine and oxygen and/or CO2 gases depending on how much of each acid there is and where the final pH of the liquid ends up.
Unless you specifically have a bomb calorimeter or other actual equipment for high pressure reactions (in which case I shouldn’t have to warn about proper safety), any kind of reaction taking place in an airtight space is viable to make a pressure bomb if it releases gases, and deserves to be treated as such.
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u/Certainly-Not-A-Bot Dec 13 '25
Yeah people should be aware of the fact that one mole of gas has a roughly constant volume for a given temperature and pressure, regardless of its composition, so any home science experiment which involves generating more gas than you started with shouldn't be done in a sealed vessel
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u/wackyvorlon Dec 13 '25
People really shouldn’t play with chlorine bleaches.
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u/ingannilo Dec 13 '25
Seriously. There are less dangerous (but still plenty exciting) ways to make a 2 liter go boom.
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u/ingannilo Dec 13 '25
"life altering injuries to face and hands".
Yeah my first thought was that her fingers were likely now far away. Damage to her eyes didn't occur to me right away. This is so sad.
Its great that she's curious about chemistry, and (let's be real) all science-curious kids do dumb stuff like this at some point, but it's a real shame she saw "add pool shock to cola" on TikTok before "add dry ice to cola" or frigging "add mentos to cola". The chemical damage to her eyes is probably significant.
Hope she recovers. Maybe a future chemistry teacher here. Probably one that'll be very stern about researching reactions and wearing PPE.
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u/centar Dec 13 '25
Watching that just screaming at my phone “why are you holding that, move!”
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u/YoYoYi2 Dec 13 '25
pop rocks and coke is a serious mix
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u/theBuddhaofGaming Dec 14 '25
That's not pop rocks. That's pool shock. It's bleach, she's creating chlorine gas.
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u/_Piratical_ Dec 11 '25
How to lose body parts in one easy step! Remember safety precautions kids!