Cooling by evaporation experiment Latent heat graph Latent heat of vaporization Most of my students did not completely understand latent heat. So I will try to keep it as simple as possible. When a kettle is put on a boil the temperature of the water steadily rises until it reaches 100 °C. At this temperature it starts to boil, that is to say bubbles of vapour form at the bottom and rise to the surface, where they burst and escape as steam. Once the water has begun to boil, the temperature remains constant at 100 °C. But at the same time, heat is being steadily absorbed by the water from the gas flame or heating element. This heat, which is going into the water but not increasing its temperature, is the energy needed to convert the water from the liquid state to the vapour state. Experiment shows that 2260000 J are required to convert 1 kg of water at its boiling-point to steam at the same temperature. This is known as the spec...