Hi,

 

During my courses I recently performed a labtest in which this reaction occured after heating. There was MnO2 present too (to speed up the reaction)

 

2KCLO3 -> 3O2+2KCL

 

Now I heard that you can use (powder)sugar in stead of MNO2 as a katalysator. Can anybody explain me why or how sugar will speed up this reaction?

yep, i can help.

 

the MnO2 catalyzes the reaction you described above because the Mn is electropositive enough to draw the O away from KClO3. as a result, the molecule decomposes and yields O2+KCl.

 

i'm quite sure that no sugar could catalyze this reaction, considering the electropositivity of carbon is very little. however, if you tell us what sugar you're speaking of, that may shed light on the topic.

I've heard from several sources that KCLO3 mixed with powdersugar burns very intense when lit (they used it as a fuel to make small rockets). I was referring to this process, because I thought that the sugar would catalyse the reaction. This is indeed not the way things go so I was wondering if it's possibily that the sugar is only needed to produce the neccesary heat for the KCLO3 to decompose and form O2+KCL which in their turn will speed up the burning (because of the release of O2) and so create a chainreaction?

Can anybody help me here?

Ok, I'll try to figure it out myself

sugar chlorate mix, the products will be Kcl as you stated. lots of water and CO2

 

it`s NOT a catalyst as it is effected in the reaction, catalysts are not

 

1C12H22O11 + 8KClO3 = 8KCl + 11H20 + 12CO2

 

it`s something like that anyway