Physics Problem??

Question

Water evaporates from a shallow dish
A student can change:
the depth of water in the dish
the surface area of the dish
the volume of water in the dish

How many of these changes would alter the rate at which evaporation occurs?

Answer 1

I believe it's just the surface area, because water only evaporates from the surface. The depth and the volume don't matter.

Answer 2

Evaporation of water occurs when individual molecules of water acquire enough (heat) energy to break the bonds of surface tension and leave the surface to float away. Actually in a room with greater than zero humidity, molecules leave and return to the surface (like in a bottle of canned tomatoes?) but the net effect is loss. Evaporation takes away the latent heat of vaporization and cools the remaining water that must re-warm from the environment. Although the surface area is key to evaporation, depth and volume of water in the dish affect recovery from cooling and all three factors you mention could alter the rate of evaporation.

Answer 3

Sorry to disagree...
The RATE of evaporation is the amount of fluid that evaporates PER UNIT of SURFACE.
If the fluid evaporates 1 ml per min per square cm, it will continue to evaporate at the same RATE, whatever you do to the surface area, the depth of water or the volume!
This is only true to a certain extend, however, if we want to be knit picking: you could consider that the rate is not perfectly uniform, and is different close to the rim than in the middle!
But again, if you sneeze over the plate, you will also change the rate, because of the draft!

Answer 4

Evaporation takes place only at the surface.If the surface area is changed then rate of evaporation is affected.The volume and depth dont affect the rate of evaporation.

Answer 5

The more exposure to air, the more evaporation. So more the surface area, more the evaporation. Evaporation rate thus will be more when the surface area of the dish gets increased.

Answer 6

Total evaporation rate depend on surface area but evaporation rate / unit area will remain the same if temperature and humidity are constant for both cases.

Answer 7

the only factor that would affect the rate of evaporation would be the surface area of the dish which controls the surface area of water exposed to atmosphere. more this area more molecules per unit area shall be permitted to evaporate thus increasing the rate of evaporation

Answer 8

the surface area of the dish
coz evaporation basically depends on the contact of water with air

Answer 9

Surface area only

Answer 10

surface area