system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Can anybody explain why adding salt to a soft drink causes it to bubble and decarbonate?

I understand it has something to do with the dissassociation of the NaCl ions in the soft drink?
I'm not sure how the ions can somehow chemically react, resulting in formation of CO2 gas.
gpt
It isn't important that it's salt. It's important that they are crystals.

Carbonated water isn't thermodynamically stable under ambient conditions. The thermodynamically stable, equilibrium state is flat soda. That's why it goes flat when you leave it out for a while. 

Soda doesn't go flat instantly because the kinetics of CO2 limit the rate of the reaction. Basically, the reaction is slow enough that we act like it is stable over a reasonable time. If there is a spot for bubbles to form - a scratch or corner or something - this rate can get sped up a good bit. These spots are called nucleation site because they are the site of a bubble nucleus is formed. You can spot these in champagne glasses cause there is often a single site in an otherwise clean glass that a steady stream of bubbles will come up from.

Adding salt adds a whole pile of nucleation sites at one time. Lots of nucleation sites means lots of bubbles happen at one time. This is the same thing mentos does since mentos is made of lots and lots of tiny sugar crystals.