You are provided with a fine white coloured powder which is either sugar or salt. How would you identify it without tasting? To examine if the fine white coloured powder is sugar pr salt we can conduct two experiments.

Soln:

1. Heating: Upon heating sugar melts to liquid form because sucrose has a decomposition point and melting point at temperatures between 190 to 192 degrees Celsius. This will turn sugar to light brown colour. Upon heat further sugar gets charred to black colour.

Salt has a melting point of 841 degrees Celsius and 1545.8 degrees Fahrenheit. If we don’t heat it to that point nothing change is observed.

1. Electric conductivity:

If we dissolve the given substance in water we can check for electric conductivity to check whether the substance is sugar or salt. If it is salt it conducts electricity. Because salt (NaCl) has positive sodium ions and negative chloride ions hence salt conducts electricity. But sugar don’t conduct electricity as sugar has only positive ions.