Purification Of Sucrose Lab Report

Introduction

White sugar generally called sucrose originates from two compounds of sugar, fructose, and glucose, combined. Sucrose, which is naturally white, is commonly produced from sugar cane or sugar beets. In both cases the procedure of extracting sugar is the same: The sap is filtered to eliminate plant substances and boiled down. What remains is thick syrup from which sucrose begins to crystallize. The syrup is turned in a centrifuge to split out the crystals, which then make up raw sugar. The rest is molasses.

The procedure of separating sugar from juice is not perfect. First pass results to impure sucrose (natural brown sugar, or raw sugar) and molasses, which is in the form of syrup. Boiling molasses and crystallizing sucrose out

While stirring, bits of brown sugar were added to the boiling water until it shape a thick mixture and froth just begins to form. Care was observed to avoid overcooking of the brown sugar. The solution was removed from the fire and allowed to cool for one time before being poured into an empty glass bottle, and it was let for several days to allow the crystals to be shaped. This syrup solution to which the crystals was shaped from is called the mother liquor. The crystals at this point appeared as tint hard clumps. The excess mother liquor was poured away after a significant amount of crystal appeared. The excess liquor that looked like molasses was poured away. It poured away very slowly, therefore, it was let inverted for several hours. The crystals remained behind stuck on the glass walls.

The collected crystals were rinsed in warm water to remove any additional mother liquor. Care was taken during rinsing to avoid dissolving the crystals. A few crystals were taken and observed closely. Hot water was used to let all the crystals to be collected in the container; we used as little water as we can to avoid any destruction of the crystals. The crystals contain a small amount of water was transferred to a small pot and heat was applied to the crystals dissolved, and some frothing were seen. The solution shaped syrup once

The crystals were observed if there were any traces of brownness if found the procedure was repeated once more

Questions

1. How might you prove that commercial grade white sugar still includes small amounts of molasses? By looking at the color of the sugar, the presence of brownness shows the presence of molasses compounds.

2. Which is more “pure” ; white or brown sugar? White sugar is purer than brown sugar since most of the impurities including molasses have been removed

3. Which is more “neutral”; white or brown sugar? Brown sugar is more natural than the white sugar, to remove impurities like molasses from the brown sugar several procedurees have to be undertaken including using synthetic chemicals to make the brown sugar white. This commonly result in making the white sugar unnatural

4. Write a statement regarding the quality of the sugar crystals you obtained from the activity. The obtained crystals were white in color and bigger in size compared to the initial