It ’s easy to flurry whitened sugar andtable salt — we ’ve sure enough broil a dreadfully salty muffin or two in our Clarence Day . Butadd a morsel of waterto these seemingly identical twins , and they ’re abruptly wholly different animals . Both salt and sugar crystals come out to dissolve in piddle , but simoleons gets sticky and salinity does n’t . Why is that ?
Hydrogen bondsare the tonality to saccharide ’s stickiness . Hanging out on its own , sugar is a solid , its speck made of carbon , atomic number 1 and oxygen atoms . The crystals are intact and do n’t puzzle to one another — you’re able to easily sift and pour sugar . But in the comportment of a liquid , the formerly strong atomic number 8 - atomic number 1 bonds in the loot will bug out to separate , and the idle atomic number 1 atom will look for something else to adhere to .
Some of the atomic number 1 atom will hold fast to the closest surface , some will snaffle onto the hydrogen molecules in the liquid , and some will bond with another hydrogen or oxygen atom in the simoleons . The result : a embarrassing mess . If you hold sugar in your hand , even a midget amount of perspiration can make thing start to get sticky . Salt , on the other hand , is made of Na and chlorine , so when it dissolves in water there ’s no hydrogen floating around to stick to anything .
But what about water ? Its mote are made partly of hydrogen , too — why does n’t it become sticky like sugar when combined with some other substance ? It has to do with the fact that pelf is much more complex than water . A molecule of sugar contains 12 carbon copy atoms , 22 H particle and 11 oxygen atoms — and many more hydrogen trammel than a molecule of water . When those bonds in the sugar get bust up , there ’s more opportunity for the molecules to grab onto whatever they ’re in striking with , including other dinero speck . And the raw bonds are more secure because there are so many of them — it ’s hard to pull them aside .
Each water molecule , on the other bridge player , is composed of only two atomic number 1 atoms and one O atom , so it does n’t have as many " viscid blot . " pee adheres well to surfaces than it does to itself — it beads up , flesh pool or soak into the carpet .
