What factors can increase the rate at which water evaporates?
1 Answer
Temperature of the water, humidity of the air and the surface area of the water.
Explanation:
If you increase the temperature of the water the rate of evaporation will increase. However, you do not have to boil water for it to evaporate.
Air can only hold so much water vapor. If you keep adding it eventually you will reach the condensation point. This is where the water vapor in the air goes back to liquid. This point is determined by the temperature of the air. Warmer air will hold more water vapor than cooler air. Therefore if you want to increase the rate of evaporation then it would help if the air above the water was warm.
Humidity is simply the term we use to refer to the water vapor in the air. Relative humidity is the percentage of water vapor in the air over the maximum amount of water vapor the air can hold. So if the air is holding half of all the water vapor it can hold at a given temperature, it has 50% relative humidity.
The greater the surface area of the liquid water the greater the amount of evaporation that can take place, which only makes sense.
If you think of water molecules as people trying to leave a theater, and the ones that get outside are the ones that evaporated. Then increasing the speed that those people move (temperature of the water), the fewer people outside the theater (low relative humidity) and the number of doors that open to the outside (surface area) you get a good example of how you can increase evaporation.
