Volcano: Baking Soda and Ketchup lava

We ran out of vinegar while doing the Baking soda and vinegar volcano. Next day CJ wanted to do the Volcano experiment. I found this cool ketchup and Baking soda experiment in chemistry.about.com site. Hurray! We had lots of ketchup in stock!

Materials Used:

Muffin Pan
Tomato and Mustard Ketchup
Warm water
Baking Soda
Dish wash Soap
Empty bottle
Spoon for mixing

Steps Overview:

Muffin Pan lava:

I found this neat idea of using Muffin pan for the vinegar and Baking soda experiment on the chocolate muffin tree blog.

Mix few drops of dish wash soap with warm water. Pour the soapy water into the Muffin pan cups. Pour Tomato ketch into few of the Muffin pan cups.



Pour mustard sauce into different muffin cups(for yellow lava)


Mix well so that the ketchup mixes with the water


Add Baking soda to start the eruption. The 'lava' reaction is slow and steady when compared to the vinegar and baking soda eruption.


Mix, Mix, Mix!


Ketchup lava!


We did the experiment with a small empty bottle too!




How the Volcano Works

The ketchup contains vinegar which reacts with the baking soda to produce carbon dioxide gas. The gas bubbles expand and rise through the liquid, bubbling out the ketchup.

Observations during the experiment:

Muffin pan: I guess more ketchup and less water will give better results.

Bottle: Fill the bottle almost full with water. Pour ketchup don't mix and add Baking soda for better eruption.

I think we will be doing the experiment again and again, Will keep updated about our findings!