JCE Software Chemistry Comes Alive!
Steam

Water is boiled and the steam is collected and run through a coil of copper tubing. The steam at this point is shown not to ignite a match or react significantly with steel wool.

Narration

This demonstration illustrates the characteristics of steam under two different temperature conditions. Initially, water is simply boiled in a flask and allowed to pass through a coil of copper tubing. When a beaker is brought near the end of the tubing, the water condenses to liquid in the beaker. If a match is placed into the steam coming out of the copper tube, nothing happens. If a piece of steel wool is placed into the stream there is no observable change in the steel wool.