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Q:
When water and sugar are boiled and placed in small containers with wooden sticks, Why do larger sugar crystals form on the wooden sticks? What processes occur?
- Paige
Bean Station, TN USA
A:
This answer has to do with forming crystals. The hot sugar water you
made had a lot more sugar dissolved in it than the same amount of cold
water could hold, you probably made the hot sugar water by starting
with cold sugar water and dissolving more sugar as you heated it up.
So when you poured the hot sugar water into small containers with
wooden sticks and the water started to cool off too much sugar was
dissolved water and it had to go somewhere, so it starts to form
crystals.
If you could look real close at grains of sugar you would see that
they are really smaller versions of the crystals that form on your
wooden stick. But if you were able to see the molecules themselves you
would see that they are arranged in neat rows and layers. These rows
and layers form as the crystals form, but in order for the crystals to
grow big the crystals need to form slowly. This is why the crystals
grow larger than normal on the wooden stick, that is the water cools
slow enough for the crystals to grow as large as they do.
(published on 10/22/2007)
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