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Monday 5 December 2016

         What happens to boiling point with increase in altitude?
So the question is about what happens to boiling point with increase in altitude. I request the readers to imagine all what is written while they read so that they can understand the concepts more clearly.
 Let’s clear some things first.
Pressure- pressure is the force applied per unit area.
Atmospheric pressure and boiling- atmospheric pressure can be simply treated as the pressure exerted by the air on all the surroundings. Boiling: the process of boiling happens when a liquid is heated. So, when the liquid is heated the molecules inside the liquid start moving rapidly. Although the entire molecules move at different speeds, only those which move faster are able to get to the surface and then they deploy into the atmosphere as vapors. But there is one obstacle which they have to overcome before changing into vapors, they have to overcome the atmospheric pressure which the surrounding air exerts on them.
Vapor Pressure- lets understand this with help of an example. Suppose we have water inside a container and the container is heated. Then as we all know water boils and starts changing into vapors. If the container is kept closed then the vapors which first were spreading up in open air would now get enclosed into the container. Then the vapor molecules exert a pressure on the liquid below which is getting heated then that pressure exerted by the vapors on the liquid is called vapor pressure.
Boiling point - the temperature at which a liquid starts to get converted into vapors.

So now let’s start about the main topic:
When the altitude increases i.e. when we go higher and higher the atmospheric pressure decreases. So, if a liquid is heated at that height the liquid starts to boil, and starts forming vapors.  This time since the atmospheric pressure is less therefore the molecules will have to overcome less pressure to leave the liquid hence the temperature needed or we can say the energy required would be less hence the liquid will boil more faster.
Therefore as the altitude increases the boiling point decreases.

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