All matter can move from one state to another. It may require extreme temperatures or extreme pressures, but it can be done. Sometimes a substance doesn't want to change states. You have to use all of your tricks when that happens. To create a solid, you might have to decrease the temperature by a huge amount and then add pressure. For example, oxygen (O2) will solidify at -361.8 degrees Fahrenheit (-218.8 degrees Celsius) at standard pressure. However, it will freeze at warmer temperatures when the pressure is increased.
Some of you know about liquid nitrogen (N2). It is nitrogen from the atmosphere in a liquid form and it has to be super cold to stay a liquid. What if you wanted to turn it into a solid but couldn't make it cold enough to solidify? You could increase the pressure in a sealed chamber. Eventually you would reach a point where the liquid became a solid. If you have liquid water (H2O) at room temperature and you wanted water vapor (gas), you could use a combination of high temperatures or low pressures to solve your problem.
Points of Change
Phase Changes: Pressure and temperature define the state of matter for water.Phase changes happen when you reach certain special points. Sometimes a liquid wants to become a solid. Scientists use something called a freezing point or melting point to measure the temperature at which a liquid turns into a solid. There are physical effects that can change the melting point. Pressure is one of those effects. When the pressure surrounding a substance increases, the freezing point and other special points also go up. It is easier to keep things solid when they are under greater pressure.
Generally, solids are more dense than liquids because their molecules are closer together. The freezing process compacts the molecules into a smaller space.
There are always exceptions in science. Water is special on many levels. It has more space between its molecules when it is frozen. The molecules organize in a specific arrangement that takes up more space than when they are all loosey-goosey in the liquid state. Because the same number of molecules take up more space, solid water is less dense than liquid water. There are many other types of molecular organizations in solid water than we can talk about here.
CHEMISTRY TERMPHASE CHANGE
Fusion/Melting
Freezing
Vaporization/Boiling
Condensation
Sublimation
Deposition
Solid to a Liquid
Liquid to a Solid
Liquid to a Gas
Gas to a Liquid
Solid to a Gas
Gas to a Solid
Explanation:
