Vaporization of an element or compound is a phase transition from the liquid phase to gas phase.^[1] There are two types of vaporization: evaporation and boiling.

  This diagram shows the nomenclature for the different phase transitions.

Evaporation is a phase transition from the liquid phase to gas phase that occurs at temperatures below the boiling temperature at a given pressure. Evaporation usually occurs on the surface.

Boiling is a phase transition from the liquid phase to gas phase that occurs at or above the boiling temperature. Boiling, as opposed to evaporation, occurs below the surface.

Sublimation is a direct phase transition from the solid phase to the gas phase, skipping the intermediate liquid phase.

The term vaporization has also been used to refer to the physical destruction of an object that is exposed to intense heat. As noted in discussions of the effects of nuclear weapons, this includes the vaporization of human bodies by the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the vaporization of the uninhabited Marshall Island of Elugelab in the 1952 Ivy Mike thermonuclear test.^[2]

The best way to describe such a process is that a flux of so many gamma ray, x-ray, ultraviolet and heat photons struck matter in a brief amount of time (photons of high energy and great numbers of them, some overlapping in the same physical space) that all such matter molecules lost their atomic bonds and "flew apart", all atoms lost their bonds to each other and "flew apart", and all nuclei lost their electron shells and became positively charged ions, and each molecule and atom that followed this process in turn emitted photons of a slightly lower energy than they had absorbed which caused the bonds to break. All such matter became a gas of nuclei and negatively charged electron ions which rose into the air due to their high temperature, or bonded to each other or to other matter as they cooled.

  References

States of matter Solid Liquid Gas / Vapor Plasma Low energy Bose–Einstein condensate · Fermionic condensate · Quantum Hall · Rydberg matter · Strange matter · Superfluid · Supersolid High energy Degenerate matter · QCD matter · Quark–gluon plasma  · Supercritical fluid Other states Colloid · Glass · Liquid crystal · Magnetically ordered (Antiferromagnet, Ferrimagnet, Ferromagnet) · String-net liquid · Superglass Transitions Boiling · Boiling point · Condensation · Critical line · Critical point · Crystallization · Deionization · Deposition · Evaporation · Flash evaporation · Freezing · Ionization · Lambda point · Melting · Melting point · Regelation · Saturated fluid · Sublimation · Supercooling · Triple point · Vaporization Quantities Enthalpy of fusion · Enthalpy of sublimation · Enthalpy of vaporization · Latent heat · Latent internal energy · Trouton's ratio · Volatility Concepts Binodal · Compressed fluid · Cooling curve · Equation of state · Leidenfrost effect · Mpemba effect · Order and disorder (physics) · Spinodal · Superconductivity · Superheated vapor · Superheating · Thermo-dielectric effect

This physical chemistry-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.