At what PSI does a plastic soda bottle explode? (home CO2 carbonation)

Apr 06, 2010 Last reply: 5 years ago 64 Replies

replying to tmovoice, Tom Lifeson wrote: When I was stationed in California, back in the 80's, I used to belong to the "Soda Butler" service. Monthly they'd bring a new CO2 cylinder, the soda syrups of your desire, and new 2 liter bottles, if need be. The regulator was set to

5psi. You'd add syrup to a line, fill with filtered water, unless you liked chlorine tainted soda, place the special cap on the bottle, (which had a heavy duty schrader valve) connect the hose to the bottle cap valve, and shake, shake, shake. I found that the longer you shaked the more CO2 would "scrub" into the liquid, so I could control the amount of fizz. It was a great system as I never had any flat soda, no matter how long it was left in the fridge, just scrub (shake) more CO2 into the liquid and like magic, fresh fizzy soda. Shaking was mandatory to scrub CO2 into the liquid at 5 psi! Hope this helps!

After reading the entire 1st page, except for Elmo who actually called COKE, all I see is flapping of lips to mask feeblemindness of self-importance.

============================== Careful! If the plastic bottles are right off the compressor the air will be hot and that's a game changer for the plastic bottle specifications. It may work if the bottle storage was well down stream, and away from the heated air, maybe at the point of use. While It may be tempting to reuse bottle caps for a DIY manifold, I wonder if the cap 'seals' are for tamper proofing or do they aid in securing the cap with higher pressures? I don't know but it could be exciting to find out! I think metal, or solid plastic caps are available online that would be more suitable. I use 2L bottles, pressurized to about 50 PSI to dispense lubricant to a CNC router cutter when machining aluminum. So far there's been no problem at that pressure and I reused a cap. The lube is water based and there's been no plastic reactions either. Might be a worthwhile idea idea to put the 'air bottle' in a PVC tube just in case there is a problem. I have my 'dispenser' bottle in a PVC pipe with a glued bottom cap and a slip fit top cap to allow pressure release and changing, yet still provide fluid containment which should help any embarrassing Uh Oh's ! Good luck, and post your success. Remember that there are 'no failures'. They are just a long list of things that don't work!

Elmo,To say at what P.S.I a plastic soda bottle will rupture is not possible due to the numerous manufactures that produce soda bottles at a non-standard thickness or grade of material. WHOLY SH^T Elmo! 150 PSI??!! DUDE BE CAREFUL! you can loose a finger with that much PSI. Check out this expierment. m

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I hope you see the danger your playing with.

At a MS science competition last year involving launching plastic bottles as rockets, the pressure was limited to 65 PSI. How this number was decided on IDK.

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