Which will be a better cold compress, water or ethanol; Why are steam burns more severe?
Not what you're looking for?
1. Which will be a better cold compress, water or ethanol? Explain (specific heats for water and ethanol are 1.00 cal/g. degrees Celsius. and .59 cal/g. degrees Celsius respectively?
2.Why is that steam burns are more severe than burns from water?
Purchase this Solution
Solution Summary
The effectiveness of different cold compresses and why steam burns are worse than water burns are explained as they relate to latent heat and phase transitions.
Solution Preview
Hello and thank you for posting your question to Brainmass
The reason for using ethanol as a cold compress has more to do with the ethanol's latent heat than with its heat capacity (though it low heat capacity helps as we shall see).
Cooling of an object by conduction occurs when the cooling liquid evaporates. However, to evaporate a liquid it's not enough to bring it to the boiling point. We need to invest extra heat to make it go through a phase transition (from liquid to gas). This extra heat is called "latent heat". When a liquid reaches it boiling point and more ...
Purchase this Solution
Free BrainMass Quizzes
General Chemistry - Classification of Matter
This test will assess your knowledge on the classification of matter which includes elements, compounds and mixtures.
Match Elements with their Symbols
Elements are provided: choose the matching one- or two-letter symbol for each element.
Thermochemistry
The quiz helps in revising basic concepts about thermochemistry.
Functional groups in Organic Chemistry
You will be tested on the names of functional groups in Organic Chemistry. It is very important to know the functional groups to understand Organic reactions.