# Why does candy floss dissolve in water?

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## Summary

Candy floss is sugar spun into very fine, glassy threads with a huge surface area. That is why a whole cloud of it vanishes in water almost at once.

## Description

Candy floss, also called cotton candy or fairy floss, is sugar that has been melted and spun into threads, usually with only a little flavouring and colour added. All of its sugar is spread out in fine strands: see how is candy floss made?
How the threads are made
In a candy floss machine, a spinning head melts sugar and flings it out through tiny holes. Food scientists at the University of Minnesota describe the process as melting crystalline sugar above 210°C, then shooting the liquid sugar into the air, where it cools so fast that it sets as an amorphous, glassy solid rather than as crystals.
Reason one: a huge surface
How fast a solid dissolves depends on how much of its surface the water can reach. The Noyes Whitney equation, worked out by the chemists Arthur Noyes and Willis Whitney in 1897, links the rate at which a solid dissolves to its properties, including its surface area.
A sugar lump has a small surface for its size. Candy floss is the opposite: the same sugar is drawn out into countless hair fine threads, so a great deal of it is at the surface. When it meets water, the water reaches all of it at once, and the cloud collapses almost instantly.
Reason two: glassy sugar
Ordinary sugar is crystalline. The sugar in candy floss is amorphous: it set so quickly that it never formed crystals. The amorphous form of a substance can be more soluble than its crystals: some amorphous medicines, for example, have been shown to be absorbed better than their crystalline forms for that reason.
The same reason it hates damp air
The glassy sugar that makes candy floss dissolve so easily also makes it hygroscopic: it pulls water out of the air. That is why candy floss shrinks, goes sticky and then turns hard and crunchy if it is left out: see why does candy floss go hard?

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