Coke-Mentos Eruption- An Experiment to do!!!

I happened to read this from a forward sent to me by a friend, "Don't take Coke and Mentos together". I thought here's another of those hoax messages and did a Google search like I always do... and lo-aho, its true indeed!!!!

Aim of the experiment: - Creating an exploding geyser from soda.

Materials for Experiment: - A 2 Litre Diet Coke Bottle and a pack of Mentos.

Reacting Agents :- (Assumed) CO2 gas, caffeine, potassium benzoate, aspartame (commonly known under the brand name of equal, its an artificial sweetener) of the coke and glucose syrup, dextrin (a carbohydrate formed by the hydrolysis of starch), coconut oil, gelatin and gum arabic (also known as gum acacia, a natural food stabilizer found from acacia tree) found in mentos.

Procedure: - Choose some outdoor place where there's enough space for you to run away. Take the whole packet of mentos, drop into the diet coke bottle, shake well, and run away... There's an instant geyser like effect seen.

Properties: - A common backyard experiment nowadays and popularized by Eepybird, who do it for entertainment on a big scale.

This is claimed to be a physical reaction than a chemical one. Now to start with what happens before the mentos is dropped? Water usually resists the expansion of bubbles in soda. It takes a lot of energy to break that bond/mesh formed by water molecule around each bubble for the existing bubble to expand or for two bubbles to combine into a big one.
A mentos candy has soft chalky structure and the reaction is on account of its physical structure. When the candy is dissolved in the soda, the gum arabic and the gelatin reacts with the soda and reduces it surface tension. This breaks the water-mesh to release the bubbles and form new ones. As the reaction progresses, more and more bubbles and formed similarly which gives rise to this "geyser effect" or the "explosion". Mentos candy has numerous microscopic pores and depressions on its surface which forms a site for nucleation to take place. The physical structure of the mentos is an important factor since the experiment did not provide similar effects when a soft, plain and wax coated candy was used for the same experiment.

Conclusion: - The experiment is a result of the nucleation sites which form on the mentos candy and contributes to the formation of a large number of bubbles breaking the surface tension of water.

NOT RECOMMENDED TO BE TRIED WITHOUT ADULT SUPERVISION; ONE WHO KNOWS SCIENCE REALLY WELL... ;)