Changing Matter

      Hey guys its Ion_Turtle again! Today I'm talking about matter and it changing state. Matter is everything that takes up space. It can be solid, liquid, gas, or plasma. Solids are hard and are well solid. Liquids are wet like water and they flow. Gasses are commonly invisible and float around in the air.

If you read my earlier posts then you know what molecules are. Well in solids, liquids, and gasses the molecules behave differently. In solids they are tightly packed and only vibrate a little. While in a liquid they flow and roll over each other. In a gas they fly around bouncing off everything.



You might be asking, "How do they change?" Well I have the answer. Matter changes states when energy is added or removed. Think of water. Have you ever put water in the freezer and when you took it out it turned to ice? That is the liquid water change to solid ice. The freezer is cold. Because it is cold it takes away the energy in the water. The water then slows down and connects together to make a hard solid block of ice. This process is called freezing.


If you take the ice and put it in your hand. Your hand will get wet. This is because your body heat adds energy to the ice molecules making them break free from the orderly solid ice. The molecules start to flow and soon you have a puddle in you hand and probably some water on the floor. This process of the ice turning to water is called melting. Freezing and melting happen at a certain temperature. They both occur at 32 degrees Fahrenheit or 0 degrees Celsius for water. Other substances freeze and melt at different temperatures, but the melting point is always the same as the freezing point of the same substance. For example iron melts and freezes at 1510 degrees C (2750°F)


Now lets add in the gas. When you heat up water it starts to bubble. This happens because the molecules get so much energy that they just shoot out of the liquid and fly away. This is called boiling. You have probably boiled water and saw steam come out. That is the water in it's gaseous state. When in the gaseous state water is called water vapor. If you get a cold can of soda you may find that the outside is wet. You might think that the can is leaking but it is not. What is happening it the water vapor in the air is hitting the cold can and loosing energy turning it into a liquid. This is called condensation. This also happens in clouds.


There is also a special thing called sublimation. That is when something goes straight from a solid to a gas. One great example is dry ice. It is commonly used in special effects and during Halloween because the ice turns straight into an eerie whit fog. Deposition is the processes of making the dry ice. Deposition is when a gas turns straight into a liquid.


There is this thing called heat of fusion. It is the energy used to turn a solid into a liquid. It works by adding energy to the solid structure that makes the molecules break out of the tight orderly structure that they were in. There is also heat of vaporization. It is the energy used to turn a liquid into a gas. In the liquid state the molecules are still pretty tightly compacted, but they move around a lot more than in a solid. The heat of vaporization breaks them apart so the molecules shoot away from the liquid and fly into the air.



Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed the gifs. Leave any comments if you want. I'll reply to them. Don't forget to check out my YouTube channel. ==> Click Here! <==


Links:
states of matter
ice
ice melting
water boiling
can condensation
melting point of iron
dry ice gif
ice melting gif
boiling gif