Balanced chemical equation?

What is the proper balanced chemical equation?

• Our experiment was to prove the stoichiometry of the reaction of Potassium Chlorate and table sugar. Our balanced equation was as follows: C12H22O11 + 4KClO3 + 6O2 ===> 4KCl + 12CO2 + 11H2O The 6O2 was assumed to be provided by the ambient atmosphere. Name Element Molar Weights (g) Potassium K 39 Chlorine Cl 35 Oxygen O 16 Hydrogen H 1 Carbon C 12 Potassium Chlorate K(ClO3) 122 Potassium Chloride KCl 74 Sucrose (Cane Sugar) C12H22O11 342 But what we found was that the "cleanest burn", leaving virtually nothing in the test tube except pure KCl, was the combination of 6g (0.049mol) of KClO3 and 0.5g (0.0015mol) of C12H22O11. That is a 33:1 molar ratio, as opposed to a 4:1 ratio predicted by the balanced equation. I posted a video of the experimental set-up here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wEVO9N4wbY Where are we going wrong?

• Answer:

  C12H22O11 + 8 KClO3 ===> 8 KCl + 12CO2 + 11H2O This equation gets you an 8:1 ratio. However no organic chemical reaction goes 100%. I think what is happening is that some of the oxygen being produced by the decomposition of the KClO3 is just escaping unreacted. There is no way except in a sealed system, e.g., calorimeter bomb, that you can force the oxygen to remain 'on site' and make it react with the sugar. Sound reasonable?