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What happens to the temperature of water after it has started to boil, while it continues to boil?
If the change of temperature is related to boiling water, then as water boils the temperature will
continue rising.
We already know that at sea level, water boils at exactly 100 degrees Celsius and that
water continues to boil until all the liquid has changed to gas.
Materials
(1) Striker
(3) Thermometers
Method
First of all, we set up our 3 identical test systems. For each system, we put a Bunsen
burner on the lab bench next to a ring stand, then above fastened a ring at horizontally about 5
cm away. Then we placed one wire gauze square on the ring, and above fastened a finger clamp
to the stand, close enough so that a thermometer could touch the wire gauze. We repeated these 3
times to set up our individual identical systems. Next, we filled up 3-100ml beakers with 40 ml
of non-potable tap water each and placing them on each of the wire gauze ring stands. After
completing that, we placed a thermometer in each beaker, being careful not to touch the sides of
the beaker, as that will give false readings from the thermometer. We then turned the gas supply
on and lit the flame of the burners with the striker, making sure the flame touched the top of the
wire gauze.
While the water heated up, we kept a close eye on the temperature and as soon as the
temperature reached 100 degrees, we started recording the temperature at 30 second intervals.
Remembering to record the temperature, we continued to watch until all 3 beakers had stopped
changing in temperature.
After turning off the Bunsen burners and waiting for the water to cool down, we took the
thermometers out and then carefully poured out the water. Extra caution was taken with the
rings, as the Bunsen burner had heated them to extreme levels. The rest of the equipment was
During the experiment, we observed the typical changes seen during the boiling of water.
Condensation appeared once heating begun then soon disappeared and then the water started
boiling, with steam rising from the surface. Nothing out of the ordinary was observed during the
experiment.
We recorded the data in a graph, data taken every 30 seconds, with one graph for each system.
System #1:
System #3:
Time After Boiling Temperature (Celsius)
0 Minutes 100.0
½ Minute 103.0
1 Minute 102.0
1 ½ Minutes 102.0
2 Minutes 102.0
2 ½ Minutes 101.0
3 Minutes 101.0
3 ½ Minutes 101.0
4 Minutes 101.0
4 ½ Minutes 100.0
5 Minutes 100.5
5 ½ Minutes 101.3
6 Minutes 101.4
6 ½ Minutes 101.2
7 Minutes 101.0
We then organized all 3 data tables into a graph:
103
102.5
102
101.5
101
System #1
100.5
System #2
100 System #3
99.5
99
98.5
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M M M i i M i i i i i i i i i
0 2 1 M M M M M M M M M M M
1/ /2 2 1 /2 3 /2 4 /2 5 /2 6 /2 7
1 2 1 1 1 1
1 3 4 5 6
Figure 1
Analysis
Once the data is put into a table, Figure 1, it is evident that the change in temperature
during boiling does not follow a pattern. It appears that the temperature rises and falls, and all 3
systems displayed the fluctuations. Systems 1 and 2 both rose, but System 3 rose then fell and
then stopped at only a 1 degree Celsius total rise. System 1 had a total rise of 2 degrees Celsius,
The fact a notable pattern was unable to be seen demonstrates that during boiling, water does
our hypothesis, although there is no specific pattern as in if the temperature goes up or down
during boiling. The fact all 3 of the tests showed a change in temperature, 2 of them going up
and 1 of them going down, demonstrates the findings. No pattern suggests that a variety of
factors are stopping a regular rise or fall in temperature, such as room temperature, heat source
There were various sources of error in the experiment. One source of error was possible
incorrect reading of the amount of water in the beakers, possibly leading to it taking longer for a
change in temperature and therefore not showing any change in temperature over the 30 second
intervals. This could have been eliminated by using a more precise way of measuring the
volume, rather than by measuring the meniscus by eye. A second source was the Bunsen
burners’ maybe being at different distances from the beaker, which could have led to more heat
being applied to the beaker, resulting in more rapid and larger temperature changes. A third
source of error might have been the water in the beaker. Since the water was tap water, minerals
and chemicals might change the characteristic of the water, and this would have resulted in the
This experiment taught us how to set up our own experiment procedure, how to carry out