Alka was making tea in a kettle.

Question:

Alka was making tea in a kettle. Suddenly she felt intense heat from the puff of steam gushing out of the spout of the kettle. She wondered whether the temperature of the steam was higher than that of the water boiling in the kettle. Explain.

Solution:

The temperature of both boiling water and steam are the same. However, steam has extra energy in the form of latent heat of vaporisation. That is why, a puff of steam releases more energy than that of boiling water.

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