Both the salt and the sugar crystals begin to dissolve in the water, but the sugar sticks and the salt doesn’t. Why so?
Sugar is a favorite food of many people. But the followers of sweets, sugar… will be very upset when left out for a bit, the layer of sugar has melted and sticky to the hands. However, why is sugar so sticky?
According to scientists, hydrogen bonds are the key to explaining the stickiness of sugar. When not dissolved in water, sugar is a solid, its molecules are carbon, hydrogen atoms and oxygen.
Sugar crystals don’t stick together, so you can easily sift and pour the sugar.
The sugar crystals don’t stick together, so you can easily sift and pour the sugar. But in the presence of water vapor or liquid, the previously strong oxy-hydrogen bonds in the sugar will be broken, and the liquid hydrogen atoms will look for something else to stick to.
Some of the hydrogen atoms will stick to the nearest surface, some will pick up the hydrogen molecules in the water, others will bond with another hydrogen or oxygen atom in the sugar. As a result, the sugar becomes a sticky mixture.
If you keep sugar on hand, even a small amount of sweat can make your hands sticky because the sugar is sticky.
With the “twin brother” is salt – which contains sodium and chlorine. When dissolved in water, there is no hydrogen around the salt to stick to anything.
But what about water? Its molecules are also partly made up of hydrogen – why doesn’t water become sticky like sugar when combined with some other substance?
The truth is that the texture of sugar is more complex than water.
The truth is that the texture of sugar is more complex than water. A sugar molecule contains 12 carbon atoms, 22 hydrogen atoms, and 11 oxygen atoms – and more hydrogen bonds than a water molecule.
When the bonds in the sugar are broken, the molecules immediately capture whatever they come into contact with, including other sugar molecules.
Each water molecule consists of only two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, so it does not have many “stick points”.
So when dissolved, the sugar will stick and the salt and water will not.