Fizzy Drinks

Another real life application of Henry’s law is in fizzy drink cans [5] . The bubbles that give these drinks their ‘fizz’ are caused by dissolved carbon dioxide gas that is stored in the liquid. However, carbon dioxide is not a very soluble gas. As such, according to Henry’s law, high pressures are used when sealing the container to achieve fizzy drinks with dissolved carbon dioxide gas as a higher partial pressure of a gas, the more of it that will dissolve in the liquid [6]. Once opened, the carbon dioxide will gradually leave the liquid until the concentration is in equilibrium with that of CO2 in the atmosphere, leaving the drink bubble-less and ‘flat’.