Re: Do sugar crystals form faster in tap or distilled water

Dear User,

I will assume that you conduct experiments in EXACTLY the same 
conditions, using EXACTLY the same amounts of sugar dissolved in the same 
amount of a) tap water and b) distilled water. I will further have to 
make certain assumptions regarding how do you actually intend to 
crystallize sugar - namely that you will achieve supersaturation via 
slow, controlled evaporation rather than simply heating the solution, 
throwing in a ton of sugar and letting it cool, which will usually result 
in either a thick syrup or massive crystallization right away.

So, given the above assumptions, I think it is safe to predict that sugar 
crystals will form faster in tap water. The reason for this is that tap 
water contains microscopic particles (bacteria, dirt, dust, rust, calcium 
ad magnesium oxycarbonate, etc.) which will serve as nuclei for 
crystallization, whereas distilled water will be essentially free of 
contaminating particles and thus will present poor medium for nucleation.

Hope this helps,

A.G.E.