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Blow up a balloon with a lemon

Put chemistry to work for you!

What you’ll need

  • A balloon
  • Empty soda bottle
  • Juice of 1 lemon or 60 ml vinegar
  • 30 ml water
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • Drinking straw

    • What you do

    1. Before you begin, make sure that you stretch out the balloon to make it as easy as possible to inflate.
    2. Pour the water into the bottle.
    3. Add the teaspoon of baking soda and stir it around with the straw until it has dissolved.
    4. Pour the lemon juice in and quickly put the stretched balloon over the mouth of the bottle.

    What happened?

    If all goes well then your balloon should inflate! Adding the lemon juice to the baking soda creates a chemical reaction. The baking soda is a base, while the lemon juice is an acid, when the two combine they create carbon dioxide (CO2). The gas rises up through the soft drink bottle, it doesn’t however escape the balloon, pushing it outwards and blowing it up.
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