Regular steam ("saturated" steam) has little droplets of water floating around it it, because it's just barely hot enough to vaporize and some of it will condense in the air. If you have a kettle or a pressure cooker with a small vent you can see this in action: the jet of steam will only be visible after it's gone a few mm out of the vent, and those first few mm will be invisible superheated steam. If it's hot enough (like 500C, so hotter than in your kitchen) it will dissipate before it has a chance to condense. You usually need a high-pressure boiler for this, or a secondary heat source like in the video that bentwookie posted.
Superheated steam was first used in steam engines because it wouldn't condense inside the cylinders, so you don't have to drain water out of the engine or worry as much about it rusting on the inside. It's also good for turbines because those water droplets would run into the turbine blades at high speed and cause pitting and damage over time.
Water vapour itself is invisible in air, we just call it humidity. What you see as steam is when the water vapour condenses out of it. IDK why superheated steam wouldn't condense but probably something to do with the high temps increasing the saturation point of the air around it.
really? why?
Regular steam ("saturated" steam) has little droplets of water floating around it it, because it's just barely hot enough to vaporize and some of it will condense in the air. If you have a kettle or a pressure cooker with a small vent you can see this in action: the jet of steam will only be visible after it's gone a few mm out of the vent, and those first few mm will be invisible superheated steam. If it's hot enough (like 500C, so hotter than in your kitchen) it will dissipate before it has a chance to condense. You usually need a high-pressure boiler for this, or a secondary heat source like in the video that bentwookie posted.
Superheated steam was first used in steam engines because it wouldn't condense inside the cylinders, so you don't have to drain water out of the engine or worry as much about it rusting on the inside. It's also good for turbines because those water droplets would run into the turbine blades at high speed and cause pitting and damage over time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superheated_steam
I fuckin love learning about things
Water vapour itself is invisible in air, we just call it humidity. What you see as steam is when the water vapour condenses out of it. IDK why superheated steam wouldn't condense but probably something to do with the high temps increasing the saturation point of the air around it.
Oh sick that makes sense to me