STEAM

odourless, invisible gas consisting of vaporized water. It is usually interspersed with minute droplets of water, which gives it a white, cloudy appearance. In nature, steam is produced by the heating of underground water by volcanic processes and is emitted from hot springs, geysers, fumaroles, and certain types of volcanoes. Steam also can be generated on a large scale by technological systems, as for example those employing fossil-fuel-burning boilers and nuclear reactors. Steam power constitutes an important power source for modern industrial society. Water is heated to steam in power plants, and the pressurized steam drives turbines that produce electrical current. The thermal energy of steam is thus converted to mechanical energy, which in turn is converted into electricity. The steam used to drive the turbogenerators furnishes most of the world's electric power. Steam is also widely employed in such industrial processes as the manufacture of steel, aluminum, copper, and nickel; the production of chemicals; and the refining of petroleum. In the home, steam has long been used for cooking and heating. State (liquid, vapour, or both) of a fixed mass of water under varying conditions of pressure and The stages that occur during the transformation of liquid water to its vapour (steam) are shown in the Figure, in which AE depict a cylindrical vessel containing a fixed quantity of water subject to the constant pressure exerted by a weighted (W) movable piston. AE are corresponding points on a graph showing, for a range of pressures and volumes, whether a specific mass of water is entirely liquid, entirely vapour, or a mixture of the two phases. A and A represent this system under conditions of pressure, volume, and temperature such that the water is entirely in the subcooled liquid state (that is, the temperature is below the boiling point of water at the prevailing pressure). The addition of heat causes the water to expand slightly and the temperature to rise until the water reaches its boiling point; at this stage, represented by B and B, the water is said to be in the saturated liquid state. If more heat is added, boiling begins: the liquid starts to vaporize (turn into steam), forcing the piston upward more rapidly than before, as illustrated in C. When liquid water and steam coexist in any proportions, the system is said to be in the two-phase region of the graph. In this region, the mixture remains at the boiling-point temperature: the addition of heat merely causes more of the liquid to vaporize, and the removal of heat causes part of the vapour to condense. Though the temperature remains constant, the volume depends upon the proportions of liquid and vapour. If just enough heat is added to vaporize the last droplet of liquid, the entire volume will be occupied by steam. At this stage, represented by D and D, the steam is called a saturated vapour. Because there is no more liquid to boil, the addition of more heat causes the temperature and the volume to increase. At any point to the right of D, such as E, the graph represents superheated steam, i.e., steam heated above its condensation temperature. As indicated in E, the volume of a quantity of superheated steam is greater than the volume of the same mass of saturated steam when both are under the same pressure. The temperature at which water will boil depends on its pressure. For example, at standard atmospheric pressure of 14.7 psia (pounds per square inch absolute), the temperature at which water boils is 212 F (100 C). If the pressure is reduced, the boiling-point temperature is also reduced. As the pressure is increased, more molecular activity is required to effect the escape of water molecules from the liquid into the gaseous state, thus requiring a higher temperature. The amount of heat required to vaporize one pound of saturated liquid into one pound of saturated vapour is called the latent heat of vaporization. This latent heat varies with the pressure, being greatest at low pressures and diminishing to zero at the so-called critical point, which is the combination of temperature and pressure above which the liquid and the vapour are indistinguishable. At its critical temperature (705.47 F; 374.15 C) and pressure (3,208.2 psia; 218.2 atmospheres) the volume of 1 gram of water is 0.001805 litre (i.e., its density is 554.1 grams/litre). See also water.