What produces more severe burns, boiling water or steam? Why?

9 responses so far ↓

• 1 David M // Jul 4, 2008

  steam, definitely. steam is hotter than boiling water when under pressure…

• 2 ♥Did you REALLY just ask that?♥ // Jul 4, 2008

  I don't know why, but I have been burned by both, and I can assure you that a steam burn is WAY worse!!!!!

• 3 Lord Zurg // Jul 4, 2008

  that is an awfully good question, according to chemical principals and mass it would have to be boiling water since it has a lot more mass than does steam, but steam hurts more curious?

• 4 steve_geo1 // Jul 4, 2008

  It takes 550 cal to convert 1g water at 100C to 1g steam at 100C. Boiling water and steam can be the same temperature, but the same amount of steam will have more heat.

• 5 skaterloren14 // Jul 4, 2008

  Well it is steam because think about steam is the third state of water or matter solid liquid gas. Gas or steam is hotter then liquid this is the heat of evaporation. Think about it you pour boiling water on you it burn. Steam is about 10 x hotter and covers a hudge area cause it spreds out .

• 6 david s // Jul 4, 2008

  steam will cause more severe burns.
  you boil water, when it hits 212 Fahrenheit it boils off.
  water never gets over 212 Fahrenheit, but you can heat steam and pressurize it.
  steam that rises off a pot of boiling water will cause burns, but steam that is pressurized can cut a cinder block in half.

• 7 Jake // Jul 4, 2008

  Well it is actually not that simple. It is very dependant upon the amount of time exposed, and also the distance from either. If the same amount of time than it would be steam. Mainly because of the temperature, but also because of the evaporation process which would "let" the steam burn in a more direct manner.

• 8 sidcs // Jul 4, 2008

  Steam burns worse be cause it is hotter and covers more surface area more effectively. Penetrates better.

• 9 pisgahchemist // Jul 4, 2008

  There are several misconceptions that are in evidence in some of these responses. The first is that steam is hotter than boiling water.

  It can be, but the steam produced from boiling water will be the SAME temperature as boiling water, 100C. To compare steam and water we need to keep all the variables constant except one, the phase.

  We would need to compare 100 grams of steam at 100C to 100 grams of water at 100C, and both would have to come into contact with the same patch of skin for the same length of time.

  And if all of that occurred, then the steam would impart more heat to the victim. The steam would first lose the latent heat of vaporization to condense into liquid water at 100C which would then be equivalent to the water at 100C.

  The boiling water or the 100C water from the condensed steam would then give up the same amount of heat as the temperature droped to some constant final temperature.

  The difference then, is the latent heat of vaporization, which is quite large for water. That additional heat would do a great deal of damage to the person unfortunate enough to come into contact with the steam.

  Also, while on the subject of steam, some folks think they can see steam. Water vapor is invisible. What some folks call steam is actually a small cloud formed as steam condenses to tiny droplets of liquid water. If you can see it, it's not steam, it's liquid water.

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