So lets see, a few days ago I made some bubblejuice for testing. It was about citric acid and baking soda.
Recepies:
3 Different cellulose mixes was used it was:
1 teaspoon, 1/2 tablespoon diluted with 200 ml water and 1 tablespoon diluted with 300 ml water. (cellulose (CMC from Lim and Handtryck wallpaper paste))
1000ml of water
50 grams sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon citric acid
18 grams glycerol
Mix and split in two, add 90 grams fairy in each and then add water for a totall weight of 1300-1400.
Half was added with +2 tablespoons of baking soda.
Second was as above without citric acid and then when split added +2 tablespoons of baking soda.
At first I did not think it would be much of an issue to skip the citric acid, and well you can skip it if you use alots of cellulose in your bubblejuice.
If you can I would say test it for your self because then you will see and understand better. I don´t know why but when adding baking soda the cellulose will instantly, not sure for the right word, but its like its breaking down to smaller parts. It´s not as slimey as before adding baking soda and when making bubbles the pop is clean. This I guess would easiest be tested by making a mix without and then add baking soda, the effect is instant, for a test on 1500ml bubblejuice I would use 2 teaspoons of baking soda, then I think noone can miss the effect because its going to be a pretty watery bubblejuice. The mix will still hold together well, but with more baking soda the easier they will pop, but you get more bubbles out of a dip if you close them off. I had seven large bubbles from a dip and with low amount of baking soda I may be lucky with 2. So thats easy to spot. Sugar seems to have an effect as well, Im not sure why but when using the baking soda the sugar has a bigger effect.
The most interesting part was when adding citric acid to the mixes without, you can instantly see the effect as it starts to "rebind" the mix, from watery you will see it become more slimey. Really interesting and even as its really light and poppy its interesting to watch. The bubbles life will not be longer, they will still pop pretty easy so it dont seem to have any effect that way.
I strongly think that its possible to use a low amount of cellulose and higher amount of baking soda + citric acid and a third part binder like wsr-301, xanthan gum or guar gum in a smaller quantity and get a really light mix strong enough for more fun. As sugar has seem to be a good bridge or binder I would probably try and add that as well.
The mix that actually worked best on first day try was the mix with +2 tablespoons baking soda without citric acid. Pop was nice and clean with some nice size bubbles. Issues, lifetime around 30 seconds, not as well as my original recepie. This also had 1 tablespoon of cellulose dilluted in 300ml of water, so 150ml of a 1300ml mix.
The bubblejuice.
The bottle with a red paperclip is with +2 baking soda and this is also the recepie without citric acid.
Second day of testing was purely to see effects when adding citric acid, more cellulose and sugar. When adding anything to a mix with high amount of baking soda nothing will have any real effect before adding citric acid. I thought that was really interesting, even adding more, alots more cellulose had barely any real effect before adding citric acid to the mix. They still will pop nice even with more cellulose and/or sugar.
Adding more detergent did not seem to have any effect at all.
This means for, by my opinion, that citric acid has a binding effect on cellulose that countereffects baking soda in a way. So for no ghosts this is good as it doesn´t seem to counter that part.
I actually run out of citric acid when I was out and had got a great mix together when running low I added one of the last bottles with citric acid and +2 baking soda, effect was negative even on a mix that was really high with cellulose.
My conclusion is that with a perfect harmony of baking soda and citric acid you can get out more from a cellulose based bubblejuice. With something more to bind it up, like wsr-301, xanthan gum or guar gum, I believe you can get great bubbles thats really light. Its also my belief that sugar somehow have an effect thats more important than glycerol.
Negative effect on large bubbles is the lifetime, even if not closing them there seem to be a stretch limit for the bubbles. What I would love to add is some wsr-301, I think that would be something.
On a sidenot, adding 50 ml of glycerol to a 1000 ml bubblejuice had an effect but by economy the effect is not worth it and I think sugar will do the exact same thing, if not better.
Ask questions, I´m not so good at what to get into writing.
The next test will be skipping baking soda and citric acid out completely. This to test how much the lifetime of a bubble is effected by baking soda mainly.