What Is Sugar Made Up Of?

Sugar is basically known as sucrose, and sucrose belong to a family of sugars which are known as saccharides, which are basically carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are those nutrients which contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen and oxygen in a molecule of sugar are in the same ratio as they are in a molecule of water, that is for every one part of oxygen, there are two parts of hydrogen.

Sucrose is defined as that type of sugar that contains twelve atoms of carbon, 22 atoms of hydrogen and eleven atoms of oxygen. Therefore, the chemical formula of one molecule of sucrose (or sugar) is C12H22O11. The chemical equation for sugar or sucrose states that twelve atoms of carbon dioxide plus eleven parts of water is equivalent to sucrose and twelve atoms of oxygen. The chemical formula for sugar or sucrose, therefore, is 12CO2 + 11H20 -- C12H22O11 + 12O2.