[snnej]

Hi all,
I am new to the board and have been searching to find an answer to my question. I work in an R&D lab and I am trying to find out if there is and exothermic reaction between sodium hydroxide(NaOH) and sucrose (C12H22O11) and what chemical is made by mixing the two. This is way above my head. I am hoping that there is someone out there who can help me.
If this seems like an easy question then will you tackle another?
The same question but with Sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) and sucrose (C12H22O11)?

Thank you in advance. I appreciate it very much.
Snnej

[Dan]

With dilute NaOH you are unlikely to get an exotherm. Your only functional groups are acetals (base stable) and alcohols - with which you will get acid-base equilibria.

Concentrated NaOH might allow some exothermic degradative pathways to become significant.

You are likely to get oxidation reactions with bleach, which may be exothermic but I wouldn't like to guess about the magnitude.

The easiest way to find out is to do the experiments. Coffee cup calorimetry will answer your question in a few minutes at negligible material cost.

[snnej]

Thank you for your response Dan.
As I'm reading more on the internet I have found that sodium hydroxide mixed with sugar causes carbon monoxide to release. What happened in our case is that we had a a pipe explode due to pressure. Does anyone think that there is enough release of carbon monoxide to cause enough pressure to have this happen?
I'm assuming that with perfect ratio of the two you would get the maximum release of carbon monoxide. Could there ever be enough carbon monoxide to cause this amount of pressure? Does anyone know how to figure this out mathematically?

Thank you
snnej