Boiling is more complex than you think!

How is boiling different to evaporation? Why are carbonated drinks so controversial? Why do kettles get so noisy just before they boil? Why get liquids get hotter than their boiling point and what is latent heat? How do pressure cookers work? The chemistry and science of boiling are all explained here.
Alan Goodwin’s paper on fizzy drinks and boiling: DOI:10.1021/ed078p385
Kettle on stove image: pexels-magda-ehlers-13772355.jpg via Pexels.com
Visit us on Instagram:
/ sannijuroku
Three Twentysix Project Leader: Dr Andrew Robertson
Assistant Editor: Purple Saptari
3D animations/production assistant: Es Hiranpakorn
Graphic Design: Maria Sucianto
This video was produced at Kyushu University and supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP21K02904. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Kyushu University, JSPS or MEXT.

[@JunchiiFR]

Love how you BOIL everything down simply to understand

[@ThreeTwentysix]

Well, I was under a lot of pressure so after making the video I really needed to let off some steam.

[@TwDjLsT]

No need to capitalize that , consider your crowd. :P

[@clarencewirley653]

Agree, very helpful in understanding

[@firstlast-cs6eg]

You really got down to the nucleation point of that pun.

[@YEWCHENGYINMoe]

lol

[@willo7734]

This is one of the best small channels I’ve ever found on this platform. I have a feeling it’s going to take off in a big way. Your presenting style is great and you have a real knack for breaking down complex concepts in an easy to understand way.

[@atreidesson]

that's why it's not small anymore

[@4m0d]

thanks a lot, I always thought I didn't have the complete intuition behind boiling, in school we were taught its the temperature at which vapor pressure of liquid equals the atmospheric pressure which allows the entire bulk of the liquid to start vaporizing and bubbling rather than just the surface molecules with higher energy. But I still lacked a proper mental animation of the process, but the imploding bubble explanation helped.

[@TheChoosenBoi]

this channel is absolute gold. So glad i found it. Many simple questions i asked myself over the years but the internet never preserved a satisfied answer.

[@markotrieste]

Excellent explanations, your channel deserves to grow... like a bubble!👍

[@ThreeTwentysix]

Thanks!

[@davidfoss4365]

Brilliant! Forty years a chemist and I've never heard better explainations. Have you consider tackling the hot water freezing faster than cold water controversy. Personally, I think it's too had to test reliably.

[@ThreeTwentysix]

Yes, it's really interesting, but I think there are already a few videos out there about that. Might add it to the list though!

[@davidfoss4365]

Hi Andrew, Thnks dor your reply. I've watched some o f the other KZbin Videos about hot water freezing before cold. I thought this might be a subject you could offer some original thinking to because; at first glance it sound like one car trying to pass another on a one lane road. But were not dealing with objects but energy distributions. And I suspect that as the bulk temperature of the two system grow closer together their their energy distributions will still look rather different. And I wonder if there is something like "energy momentum" where the hotter system intiaill cools faster and continues cooling at a faster rate until frozen. And does convection play apart? Also freezing adds a phase trasition ot the cooling process and there's lots of energy invovled in that. @@ThreeTwentysix

[@daveevans9809]

I say you are Richard Hammond, and I claim my 5 pounds! But seriously, amazing stuff. A master class of clarity that 99% of youTube channels should watch and learn from. Thank you for not wearing a baseball cap backwards, or starting with "Hey guys, wazzup".

[@BenjarminRS]

You’re so good at explaining these things in detail! You mentioned that evaporation rate isn’t effected by pressure, was wondering how this relates to rotary evaporators? Most of the time my solvent isn’t boiling but comes off a lot faster than at standard pressure.

[@benmcreynolds8581]

Related to boiling: i find heat pumps FACINATING because they're kind of mind blowing when u first learn about them & their mechanisms that make them work. (Could u cover extreme density pressures & how they affect elements to possibly get into a new state of matter. Like what they've talked about with different forms of ice/or metallic hydrogen/etc. It's a facinating topic)

[@sillysad3198]

the mindest blowingest heat pump i the one that is actuated by a heater.

[@edgeeffect]

I've been doing "idiot level" chemistry in the shed for years... And I've heard all about bumping and boiling chips... But thanks for clearly explaining what it ACTUALLY is.

[@very-mean-spirited-lizard]

Alright, all this teasing in the shorts and other videos finally convinced me to watch this one!

[@jamesmorrison7989]

Keep up these quality videos and your channel is gonna blow up in no time. Bravo man

[@wayneyadams]

In his paper he states the definition of boiling as, "The temperature at which the vapor pressure of a liquid is equal to the ambient pressure is called the boiling temperature. At first, I was going to disagree with the article, but then I thought about it more and remembered that adding solutes such as table salt (Sodium Chloride) to water raises its boiling temperature. The water is still considered to be boiling. Adding Carbon Dioxide lowers the boiling temperature to room temperature, so I now agree that fizzing liquids are indeed boiling at room temperature. It's an interesting concept I had never thought of before.

[@JavSusLar]

Incredibly, this is not clearly explained in the classes, not even in the university. As a chemist, I have achieved this knowledge by myself: the main difference between boiling and evaporation is that boiling CREATES new interface, while evaporation doesn't.

[@marcmarc172]

Thanks for the awesome video and linking me up with that paper!

[@piyushyadav9100]

Best explanation I've read so far.. Thanks

[@ihmejakki2731]

I was left wondering abt this during my stat mech class, finally I got an answer!

[@davida3962]

I don’t usually like when educational KZbin tries to be funny, or when funny people try to make educational content. But I honestly laughed so hard when you busted out the champagne. Well played, sir. And great follow up with Goodwin

[@dragonridley]

Your comment about carbonated drinks boiling made me think of two things from my background in geology. First, I see an analogy in eutectic systems. You can ask a similar question is it melting or dissolving? On the second point, it reminded me a bit of some terminology from the behavior of volatiles (mainly water) in magma. When magma rises through the crust and is subject to decreasing pressure, volatiles come out of solution. This is called first boiling. You can also get a cooling, crystallizing magma where volatiles mostly stay in the remaining liquid. As the amount of liquid decreases, it eventually becomes saturated and gas evolves. This is called second boiling.

[@horationelson57]

I stumbled upon your channel and am satisfied to have done so, satisfied with your clarity of thought and content! Cheers, from Sydney Australia

[@transponderings]

I love the way the nucleation cavity in the diagram becomes a muffin!

[@ThreeTwentysix]

I'm glad you noticed that too.

[@yaskynemma9220]

I liked a lot the nucleation sites and latent heat explanation, very visual and logic, thank you

[@wayneyadams]

Every time I used to put a beaker of room temperature water in a vacuum jar and cause it to boil, my students always asked how the water got hot enough to boil.

[@cccmmm1234]

Isn't it the pressure that the bubble is experiencing, not the pressure at the surface? The depth of the liquid will add some pressure too (even if not much)

[@ThreeTwentysix]

Yes. I didn't go into that too much but part of the reason that bubbles get large as they climb is that they experience less pressure.

[@carlosdoerner]

That thought about fizzy drinks is very interesting! Nice job!

[@firstlast-cs6eg]

So things don't boil or freeze without nucleation sites? How extreme can you go? Like if you had say water in perfectly smooth container, perfectly still clean air, and almost at absolute zero or a super high temperature say 1980c _(since 2000c is when water will break into hydrogen and oxygen, though I assume pressure etc. matters here as well)_ what happens? It still never boils or freezes? Does it still evaporate and evaporate faster? What if you had say water in a completely sealed container. Like the worlds most perfect pressure cooker able to handle any pressure and no escape of any molecules. But there ARE nucleation sites inside. Does the water super-heat up to say 1980c? With higher or colder temperatures will smaller and smaller nucleation work to trigger the boiling/freezing?

[@johnrivera922]

So informative. Really helps figure out cooking times.

[@stylesoftware]

Your doing it right, I'm super interested.

[@markopinteric]

Physicist here. Evaporation and boiling are two types of VAPORISATION (general term for the phase transition from liquid to gas). Boiling is therefore a special case of vaporisation, not evaporation.

[@GuillotinedChemistry]

Huh! Never really thought about boiling as a special case of evaporation. The bits about nucleation points was also quite good! Off to watch your evaporation video now...

[@waelfadlallah8939]

Wow that second part of the video was magical and boy, did you satisfied my curiosity about a lot of things we see on our daily scientific encounters such as why fizzy water always produces a stream of bubbles from the same site. Thank you for always pointing out these topics that are small portion of what we see or think of on a daily basis yet has a huge impact as human beings for our future and also how from little things we can make solution on a larger scale. Just one inquiry for sake of completion, why is it that there are bubbles that stick to the side wall of a container (typically glass container) in cases of a fizzy water?

[@ThreeTwentysix]

I'll have to think about that.

[@trevordixon672]

Brilliant great channel , also love Avogadro number film (with the interrupting bird ) .

[@russelljohnson5647]

l've always thought of latent heat as the mechanisum by which water transferes the PE in closed, high pressure steam engines/tubines. energy transfer from flame to KE. Physics, chemistry, and biology are so excellent..... I love em!!!!

[@waitthatsillegal.7552]

Thank you! this video really helped deepening my understanding!

[@George70220]

Well paced!

[@easteregg-ch5jg]

I wish and tjink you would grow exponentially on this channel

[@sudoboat]

> does this orange shirt make me look like a convict? yes, it does! thought that since seeing your first episode (about orbitals, and it is brilliant!!!)

[@WAMTAT]

Brilliant video.

[@ChemEDan]

It's really weird that this video has 231 views and not 231k

[@ThreeTwentysix]

I'm playing the long game on this one!

[@SeattlePioneer]

For some reason I found the evaporation video more interesting than the boiling video.

[@khaliffoster3777]

So, base on video above that is high pressure, and high smooth, so it is all about balance and about parallel, so in high pressure field around, so when you increase the energy, the boil of water will increase but doesn't go high since the pressure field is not as high, so boil depend on pressure which the boil part cause the water to leave which reduce the gap which cause the ratio of total to part to change so one part pie to total of pie, so there is 8 pieces of pie, so one part, so now it is 7 as total, yet there is missing, how to confirm the missing, well, there is a metal that you can see which represent the circle, that has a gap that is missing, so three things is need, a total of pie that is in parallel to metal, and non-parallel to metal, so there is missing a gap, so it is about balance which is connect to parallel to non-parallel, so the non-parallel form which the leaving is faster as the heat increase so cause the balance to decrease, so there is a ratio of paradox, so the high negative, lead to high positive, so the balance system that is connect to pressure itself which is open, so if the pressure is close, so the leave is low so the gap ratio of going out horizontally relative to total system, so the higher horizontally, the lower cancel out to lower temperature, ok, one atmos, will cause 212 temperature, but not higher, so the earth is huge and the open pressure is huge so the open pressure is not high, so open pressure is not the primary, well, it is primary, but visually it look open but not open since the air itself is high which you can't see the air, so the air is linked to visual pressure like balloon, so as for balloon, you squzze the center, the up part and down part will increase in pressure as the breaking point of balloon will increase so the air will go out, so the up part, decrease in space as the pressure increase, so the decrease of space which is connect to range of high to low horizontally in space, so low horizontally in space is low will cause higher pressure, so the even pressure that is high so will cause the temperature to raise, right?? So, if pressure pot is higher in atmosphere will cause the temperature to be high, so if the atmophere is so low, so the temperature of water will raise fast so will freeze fast, so two temperature base on pressure and base on temperature, well, temperature and atmosphere can be linked, but temperature can be control which is linked to same as atmosphere so increase the temperature within even pressure will be same as higher atmosphere pressure. So, the boiling is connect to anti-something or nucleus point, so there need two different cause the react, so when you have even pressure, so the temperature will increase since the edge is even all over, so the internal edge is even, same as external is even. So, if the external and internal is all even, so when ya increase the atmosphere pressure so if it is so clean and perfect so no boiling at all. So, it is about balance and non-balance, so that is linked to about density, so the high density when you drop in water, it drop fast, so it doesn't go up, so to cause the react, so it is even as go down fast, so if it is so smooth and around the water, so there is no react, but if it is hollow in water, it goes up in water since density is not high enough. So, all is about density, so no gravity, so there is no gravity as a pull down to all things, but it cancels out so by itself, but when it pull down like vacuum that is because there is open space which there is high speed of motion to cause pull in, so gravity represents close in energy, but not open energy to pull in, so basically it is all about density. So, look at everything to see more of the reality for what is. Parallel density and non-parallel density which there is two different to cause react like hollow or something, so a gap of something, which you explain the gap of hole so cause the react which the bubble go up since the energy relative to higher point of field, so at lower field so there is higher energy to cause motion upward faster, so it is not all even, but one point of gap to cause react like hollow ball is one point of gap to cause react to go up and not sink down since it is not all even.

[@msx80]

Yes! Actually every video i think here's my convict physicists 😂

[@sillysad3198]

i'd call it a special case of boiling. the fact that the liquid is undergoing the chemical decomposition is a part of the process, whereas the fundamentals are the DIMENSION of the space where the equilibrium point lives, and it is the same for boiling. then the open question is the energy transfer.

[@flextinction6951]

I have only 1 question left about boiling(phase transition) that is why water vapour has same temperature(average kinetic energy) as water that is boiling. Water vapour should have higher average kinetic energy after all water has boiled than boiling water before.

[@culurien3331]

Three TwentySix, I love seeing science channels pop up especially about chemistry!! Found you through Nate's Channel Makers insiders info. I have a PhD in chemistry myself. I recently transitioned out of industry to teach special ed high school chem. I may use some of your vids for my class. Well done. Love to support. Also, I have really wanted to make a channel just like this myself but didn't know how to get started. I need to research this niche. Find out what still needs doing. Something in education. Hmm. I'd love your advice. Probably won't happen for a few years yet. Still finishing certification and stuff, with 2 little kids at home = busy times. I'm growing a baby channel right now in a completely different niche (this one, acapella reactions), but could be good practice for something bigger later. If you ever have time to do an informational interview, let me know!

[@ThreeTwentysix]

Thanks for that! Yes, getting started is so difficult and finding a niche even more so. Nate's comments were so good for helping me decide my direction, which is now: videos for people with a pre-existing knowledge of, or interest in, chemistry. From what you've written, it sounds to me like a special ed-oriented channel could be the way to go. I would imagine (speaking from ignorance here) that short, attention-grabbing videos could be useful there. I got started by submitting the idea for a grant proposal as a research project and something similar might work for you if you choose to go that way. And best of luck to you and yours too. Let me know how it goes!

[@fariesz6786]

i think tea vendors should give a tea's brewing temperature in altitude or atmospheres from now on. curious about that elusive submarine tea you _have_ to steep at 120°C or it just tasted like disappointment. and i reckon yetis can only drink greens? maybe whites or yellows. on a different note: you were near 1k five months ago and now you're at nearly 40k. nicely done!

[@fabimre]

It all depends on how you define "Boiling"! (I think the bubbles are crucial in the definition.)

[@dominiquelaflamme7804]

Yes.

[@gavinv.4872]

Well done sir, your content is well put together and informative. Keep this up and you're well on your way to 100k+ subscribers. I was here under 1k!

[@ThreeTwentysix]

That's a great comment, thanks. I should print "I was here under 1K' T-shirts!

[@chenz089]

You got my sub

[@janAlekantuwa]

I would agree that fizzy drinks are boiling. The same style of fugacity calculations are used with gases "dissolved" in a liquid as are used with two liquids mixed together. Also, I'll go a step further and say that solids dissolving in liquids is the same as melting

[@nycbearff]

Vodka will boil at a temperature lower than the boiling point of water, but as the alcohol is in much higher concentration in the vapor at first because alcohol has a lower boiling point, the boiling point of the vodka will rise as the proportion of alcohol declines. The same is true of a fizzy drink. As the proportion of carbonic acid declines, the boiling point rises. When the carbonic acid is gone, the liquid has a high boiling point, and it tastes flat.

[@richardrhodes9664]

From almost 1k subs to now 40k? Awesome. I bet this comment will be out dated by a long mile in a months time. Subscribed

[@Exist64]

Thank you very much for this informative and understandable explanation. And no, it doesn't make you look like a convict.

[@daniellyne9420]

I never did it myself, but can't you put a fizzy during on a stove and boil it proper? If so then what was it doing before that?

[@ThreeTwentysix]

You can always make a liquid boil more vigorously by adding heat, but you aren't changing what's actually happening. In this case, you'll see the bubbles coming out faster than they were before until the concentration of CO2 is insignificant whereupon the boiling point reaches the b.p. of normal water. Thanks for the question though, it's given me a great idea for an experiment!

[@CandidDate]

What's in the space between the particles moving around? Ether?

[@strubbldesign]

Great job. May I have a question about the super heated liquid: I guess you refer to an experiment where gravity is missing - otherwise, the heated liquid would just evaporate in a rate without boiling before it gets super heated - or am I wrong😅. Maybe we have to concern the air flow over the surface area... ~ 10:45

[@pukpukkrolik]

I may be wrong and confused, but as far as I understand - superheating is a transient, unstable state where in some deeper parts of a liquid the molecules are bouncy enough to form steam bubbles (ready to boil) - not near the surface, where everything is indeed free to evaporate, but deeper - and yet the liquid is flowing so smooth that bubbles don’t form yet. Wikipedia says such a liquid can go above its boiling point, but I don’t think that can be right - if the entire thing was really that hot, there would be a complete instantaneous evaporation (even larger BOOM than just “bumping” boiling off for a part of the liquid). If we were talking about a “typical bubbling temperature” then that would be right - meaning, a temperature where deep parts of the liquid begin to vigorously steam off.

[@goodpersonff]

So if we have some water in a bottle and we reduce atm pressure of bottle only some part which has high temperature will convert to gas remaining will still remain in liquid phase even if atm pressure is 0.1.

[@jozefsoucik3115]

So is it the same with condensation, but in reversed mode? It means, is scrathes can cumulate the liquid.

[@GeraldZani]

What is the outgassing of the dissolved air?

[@phobosmoon4643]

if fizzy drinks are boiling then what is going on with pop-rocks and saliva? Maybe space would just feel poppy and tingly... jk. TY Dr, interesting video.

[@ThreeTwentysix]

Let's not get started on that one 😄

[@clarencewirley653]

Yes it does😂 but the material or subject matter rather, was really great.

[@pascallange6312]

i would guess a mixture of Carbonic acid and water is boilling , because when you look at this mixture at high pressure , it wont evaporate or ``Cook`` as it does at normal Atmospheric pressure. Sorry for my bad English

[@ridley68]

Should there be particles of tye substance in its gaseous state within the bubbles, your model seems to bubbles containing nothing.

[@GeorgeValkov]

Aye, I've been asking myself the same question about your shirt. I like it. 🥕

[@NitishYadav-rp4yj]

Sir i really like to read the research paper but the link in the discription is not active.

[@jeremyyoung627]

Cool😮

[@alexandervoytov4966]

Interesting presentation. I’d like to see some combination of your videos about flames+boiling +evaporation = chemistry of disaster on large oil reservoirs/nuclear plants/etc. That was my the 1st research topic when I start my professional career after graduation. I didn’t see much work in computer simulation of a potential disaster on industrial facilities or sensors setting in areas potential disaster. My goal was to let fire team know what is going on when they come in disaster area. Temperature, pressure, radiation. I didn’t see much work about that. I reviewed few classified reports like torpedo oil tanker to ignite flame on a ship but these reports were just wrong from my scientific point of view.

[@KGopidas]

Wonderful enlightening

[@migueldel3601]

You have a parcel of air with water vapor. In theory there is no liquid water because the temperature is above dew point. Why mist is not formed there ? Couldn’t it be that some molecules ( the ones with low energy join together through H bonds ). I can’t see why mist/dew only forms below dew point if condensation is always happening (in the case of a mixture of water and water vapor) Why some water doesn’t condense above dew point ?

[@ThreeTwentysix]

Actually, there will be microscopic droplets around, and this accounts for a part of the haze that prevents air from being perfectly transparent above the dew point. But the drops are not in equilibrium, meaning they are not stable and will soon evaporate.

[@cadelaide]

mmm.. i wonder if decompression sickness could be considered blood boiling

[@TimRobertsen]

Great stuff! Does vapor pressure change if the substance the liquid is vaporizing into is changed/something else? Water vaporizing into nitrogen or radon, f.ex.

[@ThreeTwentysix]

Strictly speaking, yes it does. But it's not usually significant at 'normal' pressures.

[@BritishBoi_ArsHead]

Is that "boiling" exotermic in fizzy drinks? Where do CO2 molecules get the energy to escape?

[@ThreeTwentysix]

Good question. It's endothermic and the energy comes from ambient temperature. If you measure the temperature of the liquid, it cools as the mixture evaporates.

[@thechosenone5644]

Read paper. Mind blown.

[@ThreeTwentysix]

It's good, isn't it. And well done for reading before commenting, you don't see that a lot on the internet 😄

[@pratikkore7947]

having no nucleation sites sounds like such a first world problem in the realm of molecules😂

[@pratikkore7947]

it's that why democracies last longer than dictatorships?😮

[@pratikkore7947]

also, I wonder how molecules differentiate between pressure and temperature

[@ChrisCogdon]

I wouldn't call the fizzy bubbles "boiling" at all. I'm sure it's how one decides decide the definition of "boiling", of course, but there's a clear distinction between the two. "Boiling" is when, on a macro scale, becomes a gas. While in the fizzy drink sense, The carbon dioxide bubbles were never in a liquid state as such, but instead as carbonic acid.

[@ThreeTwentysix]

This is certainly where I started when discussing this with Goodwin. Carbonic acid is certainly a complicating factor but it's largely irrelevant because 1) there is a always a concentration of aqueous CO2 in the solution and 2) we can make fizzy drinks with a wide range of gases that don't react with water. There are several ways of looking at Goodwin's conjecture, but the principle point from my point of view is that carbon dioxide is _not_ a gas in solution, it is bonded directly to the solvent. It is breaking this bonding that leads to a range of conditions that all satisfy the requirements to say the _solution_ is boiling.

[@sstolarik]

Yes, a little! LOL

[@islandbry]

I love your channel but yes, yes it does. When the video started I thought to myself, that shirt reminds me of a prison jumpsuit.

[@dimitri1515]

You could have thrown in this video on of my favorite concepts.....freezing water by boiling it.

[@ogi22]

OK, 0:22 and i'm making a comment. A crazy stunt with boiling? Firs that comes to my mind is whrowing a pot of boiling water in the air at around -40 degrees Celsius. A bit problematic, unless you live where you get such temperatures :D Anyways, that was my guess. Now back to watching :D

[@ogi22]

OK, 10:20 and my second guess - you are going to explode a superheated water :D 11:55 - dang, no cigar! That was funny 😁 Anyways, thanks to you i found out a few things: - Why we use lids on our pots while we boil (and i don't mean pressure cookers). And that's from a previous clip about evaporation. - Why boiled eggs sometimes crack and why adding a bit of salt helps, although it's much better to puncture the shell (prefferably over the "air cell" - a thicker end of the egg. This is so amazing when you have most of the puzzles, but it needs a bit of a different perspective for everything to "click" together.

[@TauvicRitter]

Not a decent cup of thea? Not much use for science then.

[@egyvilag]

You would deserve more subscribers. (Like me, and feel lucky for that your show is not in Hungarian.) ;)

[@everythingexplained3226]

Not like a convict. More like Uncle Roger

[@tompowers8495]

No way is a fizzy drink boiling........it is a chemical reaction ( the dissolution of carbolic acid ) vs the energized molecules of a liquid leaving the surface..,..........so what about sublimation?.......is it boiling without micro bubbles? It is also dependent on pressure and humidity explain that one smart science guy.........

[@fishyerik]

As far as I understand it some of the CO2 actually remain dissolved as CO2, some turns into carbonic acid, and there's a ratio equilibrium between CO2 and carbonic acid that is highly pH dependent. Which, if correct, means it shouldn't be that controversial to say that fizzy drinks technically boils.

[@willoughby1888]

But is it a boil or a cyst? And why does a boil not boil? I'm just trying to Bee Fun Knee, don't bother answering those two questions.

[@C134B]

I think this is wrong based off of a just by looking at an electric kettle

[@firedome8]

How does this equate to cavation

[@SloverOfTeuth]

The shirt colour is fine. It's the new black.