explain why steam at 100c causes more serious burns than liquid water at the same temperture?

Answer 1

I pressume you mean 100Celcius.

Direct contact with boing water results in localised burns.

Steam is a gas and as such is more "energetic" possesing thermal and kinectic energy. this in part leads to a greater burn.

Secondly steam as agas is more pervasive. Steam can result in serius including often fatal inhlation burns to the nose mouth pharynx , larymnx, trachea and lungs

Answer 2

It takes energy to change the phase of water from liquid to gas. Steam at 100 C has more energy (latent heat) than liquid water at 100 C. As the steam condenses to liquid, that energy is released to the object it condensed on as sensible heat.

Liquid water at 100 C is not in the gas phase and will not condense on the object and transfer the heat like steam does, so it takes longer to burn w/ liquid than steam.

Answer 3

What causes a burn is the exchange of heat between something and your skin. There are two ways at work in this question to release heat to your skin:

1) Cooling something down
2) Phase Change

The equations for heat released for each case are:

1) Q = m * C * (Tfinal - Tinitial)
2) Q = m * dH

Q is heat, m is mass C is heat capacity and dH is latent heat of phase change.

For water, C = 4.18 J/g-C, so if you get 4.18 Joules of heat for every degree that you cool down 1 gram of water. Compare that to condensing steam to water where dH = 2272 J/g! This means that for every gram of water that condenses, 2,272 Joules of heat are released!! Thats 544 times the amount of heat per gram!

Answer 4

It takes heat (heat of vaporization) to change the phase of water from liquid to gas.
Steam at 100 degrees contains more heat than water at the same temp.

Answer 5

Hi. The steam is moving so it can carry more heat to your poor arm, and the steam can wrap around making the burn more extensive.

Answer 6

i do not think so since the temperature that affects the skin. however it depends upon how the hot fluid attacks you . if it is steam then due to its velocity and sticking due to condensation on skin the effect is lethal compared to hot water.

Answer 7

Because steam has more kinetic energy