Hold the syringe with the tip up, and expel the air by gently pushing on the plunger.The leaf disks should float in the solution (see photos below). Draw about 6–8 mL of bicarbonate solution into the syringe.Pour 150 mL of bicarbonate solution into the cup.Replace the plunger into the syringe, being careful not to touch or damage the leaf disks (see photo below).If you have a straw, you can blow the discs gently into the plunger (see photos below). Put the leaf disks into the barrel of the syringe, and tap them down to the tip. Remove the plunger from the syringe, and remove the cover from the tip, if there is one.(Straws work best with spinach hole punches work best with ivy.) Using the straw or hole punch, cut out 10 circles from your leaves (see photos below).

Add a few drops of liquid dish soap to this solution and mix gently, trying to avoid making suds in the solution.

Make a 0.1% bicarbonate solution by mixing 0.5 grams baking soda with 2 cups (500 mL) water.

We add just the right amount of CO 2 to our Bubbles and it then has lots of mineral surfaces to ride on once our aluminum bottle is opened. Bubbles is the result of the perfect combination of minerals in the water and, coming back to the beginning, of temperature and pressure. So not all carbonated spring waters have the same kind of drinkably bubbly experience as JUST. Thing is, not all spring waters have the same mineral content. One way to see this happen-to pour salt (a mineral found in spring water) into a glass of sparkling water and watch the bubbles swarm. But for CO 2, they’re also surfaces to latch onto and make small bubbles. The minerals in spring water are solids-they’re just so small you can’t see them. Here’s where we get back to minerals and micro-bubbles. Eventually it breaks off from the solid surface and travels upwards, collecting more CO 2 that’s lingering in the water and grows in size, then releases into the air when it hits the surface. The CO 2 latches onto imperfections in the surface of the solid container and from there the bubble starts to form. This will happen fastest on a solid surface because it takes less energy for the CO 2 to collect when part of the barrier already exists-this is why you see bubbles in any carbonated drink collect on the bottom or side of the container it’s in. The dissolved CO 2 molecules begin to reconnect and form a barrier to the water-a bubble. The gas that’s been blended in the water has to do a little work to get out, though. The CO 2 above the surface rushes to escape the bottle (the classic fizz sound). This maintains the pressure in the bottle and keeps the CO 2 in the water blended-it’s called being in equilibrium.īut once the cap is twisted, that’s when the action happens. Inside the bottle, there’s a space between the surface of the water and the inside of the cap that’s also filled with gas that doesn’t blend with the water. The gas molecules blend into the cold water well, which is why in a closed transparent bottle of sparkling water, you don’t see any bubbles. Pressure forces the gas into the water, which must also be cold to dissolve the right amount of gas. This is important-we’ll come back to it.ĬO 2 is dissolved into water through a combination of pressure and temperature. You’ll recall that one of the key differences between tap and spring water is that spring water has naturally occurring minerals that are infused as the water runs over and through layers of stone and earth. Sparkling waters generally start out either as tap water or as spring water (JUST!) and CO 2 is added to it. You probably already know that any sparkling water sparkles because of a gas called carbon dioxide (CO 2). But to do that we first have to give a little primer on how bubbles form in carbonated water in the first place.

We’d like to take a minute to explain how the bubbles in Bubbles are special because they’re micro and delightful. At JUST, we have a tendency to nerd out on the details.

Tiny bubbles in tap water