What is Vaporization?

Vaporization is the process of converting a liquid into a gas. It is also called evaporation. Since we know that the particles of a gas are moving faster than those of a
liquid, an input of energy must be required for a liquid to become a gas. The most common way to add energy to a liquid system is by adding heat.

As a liquid gains energy, the molecules begin to move around faster. If a molecule is on the surface of the liquid, and has enough energy, it can break free and become
a gas molecule. As with anything in chemistry, or life for that matter, there are other factors that determine how easily a molecule can break free from the liquid. We
just discussed some of them: intermolecular forces.

The stronger the intermolecular forces that are holding a liquid together, the more energy that will be required to pull them apart. What this means in practicle terms is
that a liquid with strong intermolecular forces will have to be heated to a higher temperature before it will evaporate.

For example: Look at Methane (CH4 M.W. 16 g/mol) and Water (H2O 18 g/mol). Their molecular weights are very similar, but their Heats of Vaporization (how much
heat per mole that has to be added to make them evaporate) are very different. Water has a DHvap of 40.7 kJ/mol and Methane has a DHvap of 8.2 kJ/mol. Methane is
actually a gas at room temperature because of its low heat of vaporization.

What is condensation?

Well, the opposite of vaporization, of course. The process by which a gas changes phases into a liqud. And if you must add energy/heat a liquid to convert it to a gas,
then you must remove energy from or cool a gas to convert it into a liquid. Make sense? Yes. What else makes sense is that the amount of energy required to go from
gas to liquid phase would be the same as that required to go from liquid to gas, just opposite in sign. So the Heat of Vaporization is the same for both processes, just
positive (endogonic/endothermic) for evaporation and negative (exergonic/exothermic) for condensation.