Resumen de Sizzle and Fizzle of Bath Bombs: An Inexpensive and Accessible Kinetics Experiment
Cosmetic chemistry is a prevalent part of everyday life, but there are very few undergraduate laboratories that explore this topic. Here, we present a laboratory exercise in which students use fizzing bath tablets (better known as “bath bombs”) to learn about introductory kinetics. Students created their own bath bombs by combining citric acid, baking soda, and Epsom salts and reacted them at a range of temperatures. Students observed a trend consistent with the Arrhenius equation and collision theory: the reaction time decreased as the temperature of the water increased. This experiment is ideal for first year undergraduate chemistry courses and was met with excitement and enthusiasm from the students who tested it. The experiment uses readily available and inexpensive ingredients, making it very accessible and an attractive demonstration for outreach events.
