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Re: alternate DIY CO2





On Tue, 24 Oct 2000, Alireza Sedarat wrote:

> I'm sure some one else has thought of this and its been rejected, but is
> there any reason that acetic acid and sodium bicarbonate (vinegar and
> baking soda) wouldn't work?  It seems that it might be too fast a
> reaction to be regulated, but wouldn't that be true of the other
> carbonate-acid reaction mentioned?

Vinegar+baking soda (and other acid+carbonate combinations) should work,
but in all cases an unregulated reaction would produce CO2 faster than we
need it, or wouldn't last long enough to be useful.  The problem is to
come up with some way to combine the acid and the carbonate so that the
CO2 is produced in a continuous and predictable manner.

This sounds like a fun project, but the up-front cost of experimenting and
building a device to combine the acid+water could easily exceed the
up-front cost of a pressurized CO2 system.  Then after the initial
invention is done the ongoing cost of feeding and maintaining the device
will almost certainly exceed the cost of bottled CO2.  There would also be
safety concerns with any strong acid that was used.


Roger Miller