Baking powder submarine

[greenman407]

My young son bought me a present today. A small toy submarine powered by baking powder. The way it works is you fill the sail halfway with baking powder . It has holes in the bottom of the sail and when you place it in the water, the water then reaches the baking powder. The byproduct of this is co2 gas. This gas then causes the sub to surface. In my mind I thought that this raises some interesting posibilities. What would happen in a gas system if you lose track of how many blow and vent cycles you have used and you now find your submarine on the bottom. Ordinarily you would have to go swimming or hope that it would eventually come up. What would happen if you constructed a container to hold a quantity of baking powder, installed it in your sub to vent into your ballast tank. A servo could be attached to a valve on one end to admit water at your command.The co2 would enter the ballast tank and expel a quantity of the water in it ,sending it on the way to the surface. What would have to be worked out is how much baking powder would be needed to produce how much Co2. Just a thought.

[bonky]

Re: Baking powder submarine

My young son bought me a present today. A small toy submarine powered by baking powder. The way it works is you fill the sail halfway with baking powder . It has holes in the bottom of the sail and when you place it in the water, the water then reaches the baking powder. The byproduct of this is co2 gas. This gas then causes the sub to surface. In my mind I thought that this raises some interesting posibilities. What would happen in a gas system if you lose track of how many blow and vent cycles you have used and you now find your submarine on the bottom. Ordinarily you would have to go swimming or hope that it would eventually come up. What would happen if you constructed a container to hold a quantity of baking powder, installed it in your sub to vent into your ballast tank. A servo could be attached to a valve on one end to admit water at your command.The co2 would enter the ballast tank and expel a quantity of the water in it ,sending it on the way to the surface. What would have to be worked out is how much baking powder would be needed to produce how much Co2. Just a thought.

I can recall these as giveaways in Kellogg's Cornflakes in the very late 50's or early 60's (in the UK). Great fun; they turned slightly sideways to expel the CO2 ...

BW

Bonky

[greenman407]

Yes I noticed that tendancy

Yes I noticed that tendancy to roll slightly over to expell a gas bubble.

[fgroza]

Restoration Hardware is where I

Restoration Hardware is where I got mine.
Frank

[roedj]

Baking soda submarine

Friends,

WOW!! Does that ever bring back memories. I played for hours with my Kellogg's (of Battle Creek) baking powder sub in the bathtub.
And yes, it tipped to expel the gas but then again so did I.

Dan in Michigan