Rock Candy Experiment

This experiment has to do with solutions and dissolution.

Water is a natural solvent, since many substances can
dissolve in it. Sugar is a good example- sugar contains a lot
of polar hydroxide groups that cause it to dissolve in water
fairly easily.
However, all substances can only dissolve up to a certain
point. At that point, the solution becomes saturated, and if
you add any more sugar, it will remain solid because it has
no room to dissolve.
When we heat water and sugar, we increase the saturation
capacity, so more sugar can dissolve. This is because heat
causes molecules to move apart and have more energy, so
the sugar molecules can dissolve in hot water better than in
cold water.
When we place the string in a solution and then in the jar
full of the supersaturated solution, the sugar will be
attracted to the existing solid molecules stuck to the string
and form a nice crystalline structure, since sugar is a
crystalline substance in nature. As days pass, water will
evaporate but the sugar will remain in the solution, causing
it to become even more saturated and thus more sugar will
be added to our crystal, causing it to grow.

The main difference between these different types of candies

is whether sugar crystals form and, if so, what their size
is. So how do sugar crystals form, and what causes them to
have different sizes when the syrup is cooled down?
Lets assume we can see sugar at the molecular level. Each
grain of sugar consists of a small crystal made of an orderly
arrangement of molecules called sucrose. Sucrose is an
example of a carbohydrate. The basic unit of a carbohydrate

is a monosaccharide or simple sugarsuch as glucose or

fructose (Fig. 1). These simple sugars can be linked together
in infinite ways. Sucrose is a disaccharide made up of

glucose and

In a sugar crystal, the sucrose molecules are arranged in a

repeating pattern that extends in all three dimensions, and
all of these molecules are attracted to each other by
intermolecular forcesa type of interaction that binds
molecules together and is weaker than the bonds between
atoms in a molecule.
When you add granulated sugar to water, some of the
sucrose molecules start separating from one another
because they are attracted to the water molecules (Fig. 3).
When water and sucrose molecules are close to each other,
they interact through intermolecular forces that are similar
to the intermolecular forces between sucrose molecules.

Sowhensomethingsolidisexposedtothemixtureofsucroseand
H2O,sugarmoleculesareattractedtothemostsolidobjectinthe
area.Therefore,buildingupcrystalsandproducingrockcandy.