Chemically, why is it that by adding salt to water, you enable it to boil faster?

Answer 1

Adding salt to water will make it boil at a higher temperature, but it will not necessarily boil faster. Here's why:

In order to boil, water needs to gather energy. This energy is used to make the water molecules vibrate. Temperature is a measure of how fast these molecules are vibrating.

When you add any solute (dissolved substance) to water, you are going to elevate its boiling point. This is because the salt fills up the 'empty spaces' in the water. Because of this, any energy you add has to make the water molecules AND the salt ions vibrate, and it's therefore harder for water molecules to escape as a gas. The boiling point has increased.

The water will not boil faster, though--it will actually boil more slowly, since you have to add more heat to get to the new boiling point.

Answer 2

It doesn't boil faster.
Adding salt will actualy increase the boiling point and thus you will need more time and energy to get the water boiling.

However salt decreases the solubilty of gases in water.
So whatever gas was dissolved-especially air in tap water-will start leaving from the water at lower temperatures and thus it would seem like boiling faster although it's not actually boiling. The amount of gas dissolved in water is small to begin with, so this phenomenon should be very short if observable at all.

Answer 3

It actually takes longer to boil, but it's hotter. This is because the salts of Group IA elements (like sodium) dissociate almost completely and give electrolytes in the solution, which raise the boiling point. So while it may take longer to boil, salted water cooks food faster than plain water.

Answer 4

No. Adding NaCl (table salt) only causes the water to boil at a higher temperature. This is because salt ionize (turns into its constituent Ions from an Ionic bond) into Na+ and Cl- when in water, and this ionization causes the boiling point of water to increase. but it takes a lot of salt to do this!
this is called a colligative property, and is represented by the equation Kb(m)(i)= Change in temperature
where Kb is the boiling point elevation constant (unique for all solvents) m is the molality (kg of solute per mol of solvent) and i is the vant hoff factor (which tells us how many solute moles dissolve in the solvent)

it does however take a lot of salt to raise the temperature of water 1 degree, and the amount used in cooking wont do this!

Answer 5

I certainly have tried this try because of the fact my mom used to assert this to boot. I placed on 2 pots of water. I grew to become the ranges on on the comparable time and the comparable temperature. whilst they the two have been given so warm that there grew to become into steam increasing, I placed a splash of salt into between the pots and left the different non-salted. the single that had salt in it did come to a boil a good purchase quicker than the single that did not have the salt. For that rely, regardless of if I had placed the two the pots on at distinctive durations the single that boiled exceeded the single that had no salt by using greater advantageous than 5 minutes. So sure, after my test I got here to the tip that because of the element extra to the water it made it come to a boil quicker.

Answer 6

Actually it does not boil faster, but slower. Salt makes the boiling temperature higher hence causing the water to start to boil at a higher temperature.

Answer 7

Salt water boils at a higher temperature...which will take longer to achieve than water without salt.

Answer 8

adding salt (ie. table salt or NaCl) to water results in the breaking of the ionic bonds in the salt and the breaking of the hydrogen bonds between the water molecules. Check out this link

http://dl.clackamas.cc.or.us/ch105-03/mixing2.htm

Answer 9

Follow the link provided by Mal*... and Angyles Cerd... is correct also. Sodium is NOT a heavy metal... it's an alkali metal and by increasing the density of the water, it takes more energy for the water to reach it's vapor pressure and thus, to boil.

Answer 10

Because it contains NACL and the sodium part is a heavy metal that sinks to the bottom of the pan causes the heat to build up faster since it will not allow the steam vapor to escape quickly.