# Why does the pH of soft drinks get lower as they go flat? Tags: inorganic-chemistry, acid-base, everyday-chemistry, ph - Score: 11 - Views: 33844 - Answers: 3 - Answered: yes - Asked by: 1111 (111 rep) - Asked: 2016-07-22 - Site: chemistry ## Question I am doing an investigation about the chemistry of soft drinks and as part of this I observed the effect of time on the pH of soft drinks fully expecting the pH to increase as the carbonic acid, a weak acid, decomposed and CO2 escaped. Instead, time after time, the pH decreased, not by much though in fact it hardly made a difference to the acidity of the drinks but it the pH still decreased every time. So I did a control experiment with soda water and found that the pH did increase when the CO2 escaped the drink. I originally did it with Coke and Pepsi, which aside from carbonic acid also have phosphoric acid (Pepsi has citric acid as well) so the increase in acidity probably has to do with an interaction between the the weak carbonic acid and the strong phosphoric/citric acid. Can anyone help me to explain this? ## Answers ### Answer by Ben Welborn (score: 3) I think you said it... phosphoric acid. Carbonic acid is "buffer