Phase changes at home

Phase changes happen all around us all the time, not only during super-large scale events, as in Earth s water cycle. Take a tour of your home and you will likely find phase changes at work in nearly every room. 

We use changing states of matter to make our lives more comfortable. Many modern conveniences found all around us, especially in our homes, rely on the changing state of matter. This chapter takes you on a tour of some of the phase changes all around you. 

If you live in a place where there is very hot or very cold weather, you might have machinery to help regulate the temperature of the air in your home and car. Air conditioners and certain types of heaters take advantage of the energy released during some state-of-matter changes to adjust temperature. 

Traditional air conditioners use a continuous cycle of evaporation and condensation to remove heat from a room and blow it outside. To cool the air, a part of the air conditioner contains a gas that naturally evaporates at cold temperatures. This gas is called a refrigerant. The refrigerant flows continuously through three parts of the appliance that change its state of matter from liquid to a gas and back. These parts are a condenser, an evaporator, and a compressor. 

In the condenser, the refrigerant changes from a gas to a liquid. This process produces heat, which is usually blown with a fan out the back of the air conditioner to the outside. The purpose of this phase change is to supply the air conditioner with liquid. 

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It is not always necessary for the resin to be in the hydrogen form for adsorption of cations, especiaHy if a change in the pH of the Hquid phase is to be avoided (see also Hydrogen-ION activity). Eor example, softening of water, both in homes and at industrial sites, is practiced by using the resin in the form. 

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