Name ___________________________________________ Date ______________________ Class ________________________

To investigate how the temperature of liquid water changes as it is heated until it becomes water vapor.

You could watch a pot of water on the stove boil for a long time before all the water evaporated. Have
you ever thought about what is actually happening in the water while it boils? Where is all of the energy
going as you heat up the pot? The process of vaporization is fascinating!

Boiling, evaporation, vaporization

The particles that make up a gas have more thermal energy than particles of the same substance in the
liquid state. The particles of a liquid are in close contact with each other while gas particles are spaced
significantly further apart. The transition from a liquid to a gas is known as vaporization and occurs by
either evaporation or boiling. The boiling point is a characteristic property of a substance and can be used
by chemists to help identify or classify the substance. The normal boiling point is the temperature at which
the substance boils at sea level. At higher altitudes, where the air pressure is lower, the boiling point is also
lower.

1. Start Virtual Physical Science and select Temperature During Vaporization from the list of assignments.
The lab will open in the Calorimetry laboratory. A coffee cup calorimeter filled with 100 mL of water at
25C is on the lab bench. Click the clock on the wall labeled Accelerate to accelerate the laboratory time.
Turn on the heater by clicking on the green light on the control panel labeled Heat.
2. Observe the temperature of the water graphed in the plot window as a function of time until steam
begins to form above the coffee cup calorimeter. Record the temperature at which the boiling begins in
the data table. Continue to observe the graph until three minutes have passed. (Use the graph to know
when 3 minutes have passed.) Click Save on the Plot window. Click on the link in the lab book to display
the graph for the time 0-3 minutes.
3. Click the Pressure display just below the green Exit sign to display the pressure in the virtual laboratory.
Record this pressure in the data table. The pressure is displayed on this meter only in torr. A torr is
another unit of pressure commonly used by chemists. There are 760 torr in 101.3 kPa.

1. At what temperature does the steam first begins to form?

Name ___________________________________________ Date ______________________ Class ________________________

2. In the grid below, make a sketch of how the temperature of the water changed with time. Label the
axes. Label the part of the line where the water is a liquid. Label the portion where the water is
changing to a gas. The blue graph line will appear on top of the black outline of the graph boundary. You
may have to look closely to see the blue graph line. The blue graph line will appear at the top of the
black outline of the graph boundary. You may have to look closely to see the blue graph line.

3. What is happening to the temperature of the water in the first minute as heat is being added? Why?

4. What is happening to the temperature as the water continues to boil and the liquid water is changed to
water vapor? Explain.

5. The average or typical air pressure at sea level is 760 torr. This pressure may vary by ±15 torr
depending on the weather. In stormy weather, the pressure at sea level drops lower than 760 torr. In
good weather, the pressure rises above 760 torr. The normal boiling point of water is 100C. From your
observation of the boiling point and air pressure what can you conclude?
Name ___________________________________________ Date ______________________ Class ________________________

6. From this observation, what would happen to the boiling point of water at the top of Mt. McKinley?
(The summit of Mt. McKinley is the highest elevation in North America at 6194 m above sea level. At
this altitude there is much less atmosphere above so the air pressure is much lower.)