Why Do Crystals Grow in Sugar Water?

Sugar at the microscopic level forms cube-like crystal structures.

The formation of sugar crystals in water is captivating, with the wondrous patterns sugar makes. Scientists and students conduct experiments studying sugar forming crystals in water, and confection makers utilize sugar's crystallization in developing certain candy.

Features

If you were to look at sugar under a microscope, you could see that it consists of cube-shaped solids. Sugar crystals in their natural state seek an ordered form. When you place sugar crystals in water, they seek to crystallize and return to their original solid.

Effects

When sugar is placed in a fixed amount of water, only a certain amount of sugar can be dissolved into the solution. When a sugar-water solution is heated it becomes sugar saturated, and as it cools it becomes supersaturated with sugar. Supersaturation is an unstable state, so the sugar crystals become motivated to crystallize and form more solid structures, according to the Science of Cooking website.

Considerations

According to the The Museum of Unnatural Mystery, when substances change from liquid or gas into a solid state, they can form crystals. Evaporation increases the saturation of a solution, according to the Ask a Scientist website, so sugar crystals in a heated solution that evaporates when it cools will form more crystals.

References

• The Science of Cooking: What is Sugar?
• Ask a Scientist: Growing Sugar Crystals
• The Museum of Unnatural Mystery: Experiment: Growing Crystals

Resources

• Teaching Pre K-8: Growing Crystals