How is it possible for clothes to dry on the clothesline if they are not hot enough to cause the water trapped in them to boil and evaporate?
As far as we know, the evaporation process takes place at high temperatures (above 100°C), that is, for the liquid to reach the vapor state it needs to be superheated.
When washing your clothes, you allow water molecules to adhere to the fabric. Therefore, the water is not free in the environment, it is lodged among the clothes. As much as you give away heating sources, like sun drying, for example, the water is still there, well hidden away. Unless she chooses to expose herself on the surface of her clothing. Heat in this case can be defined as the energy that molecules have, the greater the heat, the greater the energy for the molecules to escape out of the tissue.
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At a temperature of 20°C, some molecules will have enough energy to move completely from the clothing to the air. At a certain point, all the molecules will have already escaped and evaporated due to contact with the hot environment, that's when we identify the clothes as dry.
At some times of the year, during the dry season (drought), the process of drying clothes is accelerated. The low relative humidity of the air makes it steal the water contained in the clothes. Thus, it is common practice to place wet towels at the head of beds to facilitate breathing at bedtime, since the surrounding atmosphere will become humidified.
By Líria Alves
Graduated in Chemistry
Brazil School Team
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Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
SOUZA, Líria Alves de. "Heat in the process of drying clothes"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/quimica/calor-processo-secar-roupas.htm. Accessed on June 28, 2021.
