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Chapter 11: Problem 81

A student hangs wet clothes outdoors on a winter day when the temperature is \(-15^{\circ} \mathrm{C}\). After a few hours, the clothes are found to be fairly dry. Describe the phase changes in this drying process.

Short Answer

Expert verified
The clothes with liquid water on them were exposed to a temperature below freezing, causing the water to freeze into a solid. This ice on the clothes sublimated (i.e., went directly from the solid phase to the gaseous phase without becoming a liquid first), leaving the clothes dry. This process of water in liquid form turning into a solid (ice) then directly into a gas is called sublimation.

Step by step solution

01

Initial Condition

Initially, the wet clothes are hung outside, and the water on the clothes is in its liquid state. The outside temperature is given as \(-15^{\circ} \mathrm{C}\), which is well below the freezing point of water, \(0^{\circ} \mathrm{C}\). Thus, the water on the clothes will quickly freeze into ice, converting the phase from liquid to solid.
02

Transformation Process

Once the liquid water has turned to ice, it doesn't normally go back to being liquid in such cold temperatures. Meanwhile, the air isn't 100% humidity, so the ice on the clothes will start to sublimate. Sublimation is the transition of a substance from the solid to the gas phase without passing through the intermediate liquid phase. This process will continue until all the ice has transformed into water vapor.
03

End Results

At the end of this process, the clothes will be dry as all the water (initially as a liquid, then froze into solid ice) has now sublimated into the gaseous phase. The clothes went from being wet (having liquid water on them), to having ice, to being dry (no water left as it's changed to gaseous form)

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