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heat of vaporization

heat of vaporization

7.2
Amount of heat needed to turn a liquid into steam without raising its temperature
  • noun
  • /hiːt əv ˌveɪpəraɪˈzeɪʃən/
  • Specialized
translation icon : calor de vaporización
  • They seemed quite excited about having worked with liquid nitrogen (whose heat of vaporization they were asked to measure); they thought the substance was "neat."

Examples

  • Volumetric capacity is dependent not only on the latent heat of vaporization but also on the density of the refrigerant vapor that enters the compressor.

    Academic text (1998)
  • The high heat of vaporization helps explain why sweating cools the body more effectively.

  • The heat of vaporization and the heat of fusion are two very big numbers multiplied by all that ice.

    Blog text (28)
  • Similarly, it takes a lot of energy to increase the temperature a small amount when the fluid is near the critical point, much like the heat of vaporization requires energy to convert a liquid to a vapor.

    Academic text (2012)
  • Compound vapor pressures and associated heats of vaporization strongly influence removal efficiencies 43.

    Academic text (2018)
  • None of the latent heat of vaporization of steam generated in the HRSG is lost to the cycle, so the potential exists for efficient exhaust energy recuperation.

    Academic text (1995)
  • The heat of vaporization of water is necessary for processes such as boiling and evaporation.

  • Understanding the heat of vaporization is important for thermal dynamics in engineering.

Synonyms

latent heat
vsheat of vaporization
  • Specialized
1 5.0

Heat taken in or given out when a material changes state, such as melting and boiling

is the amount for changing liquid into vapor specifically at constant temperature

Surface Forms

Morphology

heat + of + vaporization

The phrase is a straightforward compositional noun phrase: 'heat' (energy) related to the process named by 'vaporization' (turning a liquid into vapor), so the meaning ‘the heat associated with vaporization’ is directly derivable from the parts. It follows a regular English 'X of Y' technical naming pattern that is cross‑linguistically common, so a learner who knows the constituents would understand the term.

Etymology

Heat of vaporization comes from its literal parts: heat (the energy you give) and vaporization (the act of turning a liquid into a gas). Think of boiling water: you keep adding heat but the temperature stays the same until the water becomes gas. So, the phrase means the exact amount of heat needed to 'vaporize' a liquid.