Bath bombs, also known as effervescent bath tablets, are solid mixtures of citric acid, baking soda, Epsom salt, and other additives that, when added to water, react to fizz and add fragrance. Although cosmetic chemistry is a multibillion dollar industry and a prevalent part of everyday life, there are very few cosmetic chemistry experiments in the chemical education literature. We developed a laboratory experiment in which students create homemade bath bombs and then watch them “explode” to investigate the effect of temperature on the time it takes for the fizzing reaction to occur. Instead of kinetics, the experiment could be adapted to focus on stoichiometry, acid-base reactions, or thermochemistry. Bath bombs are made of relatively inexpensive and safe materials, making the experiment attractive as a science outreach demonstration, as well. Details of the experiment will be presented.

Sizzle and fizzle: An inexpensive and accessible kinetics experiment using bath bombs

256th National Meeting (2018)

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