vaporization

vaporization, change of a liquid or solid substance to a gas or vapor. There is fundamentally no difference between the terms gas and vapor, but gas is used commonly to describe a substance that appears in the gaseous state under standard conditions of pressure and temperature, and vapor to describe the gaseous state of a substance that appears ordinarily as a liquid or solid. Although most substances undergo changes of state in the order of solid to liquid to gas as the temperature is raised, a few change directly from solid to gas in a process known as sublimation.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Evaporation and Vapor Pressure
• The Boiling Point and Latent Heat of Vaporization

Liquids can also change to gases at temperatures below their boiling points. Vaporization of a liquid below its boiling point is called evaporation, which occurs at any temperature when the surface of a liquid is exposed in an unconfined space. When, however, the surface is exposed in a confined space and the liquid is in excess of that needed to saturate the space with vapor, an equilibrium is quickly reached between the number of molecules of the substance going off from the surface and those returning to it. A change in temperature upsets this equilibrium; a rise in temperature, for example, increases the activity of the molecules at the surface and consequently increases the rate at which they fly off. When the temperature is maintained at the new point for a short time, a new equilibrium is soon established.

The pressure exerted by the vapor of a liquid in a confined space is called its vapor pressure. It differs for different substances at any given temperature, but each substance has a specific vapor pressure for each given temperature. At its boiling point the vapor pressure of a liquid is equal to atmospheric pressure. For example, the vapor pressure of water, measured in terms of the height of mercury in a barometer, is 4.58 mm at 0℃ and 760 mm at 100℃ (its boiling point).

When heat is added to a liquid at its boiling point, with the pressure kept constant, the molecules of the liquid acquire enough energy to overcome the intermolecular forces that bind them together in the liquid state, and they escape as individual molecules of vapor until the vaporization is complete. Vaporization at the boiling point is known simply as boiling. The temperature of a boiling liquid remains constant until all of the liquid has been converted to a gas.

For each substance a certain specific amount of heat must be supplied to vaporize a given quantity of the substance. This amount of heat is known as the latent heat of vaporization of the substance. The quantity of heat applied for each gram (or each molecule) undergoing the change in state depends on the substance itself. For example, the amount of heat necessary to change one gram of water to steam at its boiling point at one atmosphere of pressure, i.e., the heat of vaporization of water, is approximately 540 calories. Other substances require other amounts.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2025, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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