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Boiling chip
 
 
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Boiling chips, also known as boiling stones, boileezers or anti-bumping granules, are small, irregularly shaped stones added to liquids to make them boil
Boiling

Boiling, a type of phase transition, is the rapid vaporization of a liquid, which typically occurs when a liquid is heated to its boiling point, the temperature at which the vapor pressure of the liquid is equal to the pressure exerted on the liquid by the surrounding environmental pressure....
 more smoothly mainly in distillation
Distillation

Distillation is a method of separation process mixtures based on differences in their Volatility in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical separation process, and not a chemical reaction....
. They provide nucleation
Nucleation

Nucleation is the onset of a crystal in a small region. The phase transition can be the formation of a bubble or of a crystal from a liquid. Creation of liquid droplets in saturated vapor or the creation of gaseous bubbles in a saturated liquid is also characterized by nucleation ....
 sites so the liquid boils easily without becoming superheated
Superheating

In physics, superheating is the phenomenon in which a liquid is heated to a temperature higher than its boiling point, without boiling. Superheating is achieved by heating a wiktionary:Homogeneous substance in a clean container, free of nucleation sites, while taking care not to disturb the liquid....
. Without boiling chips, a liquid heated in a smooth container can become superheated and release vapor
Vapor

A vapor or vapour is a substance in the gas phase at a temperature lower than its critical temperature.This means that the vapor can be condensation to a liquid or to a solid by increasing its pressure, without reducing the temperature....
 suddenly, sometimes violently.






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Boiling chips, also known as boiling stones, boileezers or anti-bumping granules, are small, irregularly shaped stones added to liquids to make them boil
Boiling

Boiling, a type of phase transition, is the rapid vaporization of a liquid, which typically occurs when a liquid is heated to its boiling point, the temperature at which the vapor pressure of the liquid is equal to the pressure exerted on the liquid by the surrounding environmental pressure....
 more smoothly mainly in distillation
Distillation

Distillation is a method of separation process mixtures based on differences in their Volatility in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical separation process, and not a chemical reaction....
. They provide nucleation
Nucleation

Nucleation is the onset of a crystal in a small region. The phase transition can be the formation of a bubble or of a crystal from a liquid. Creation of liquid droplets in saturated vapor or the creation of gaseous bubbles in a saturated liquid is also characterized by nucleation ....
 sites so the liquid boils easily without becoming superheated
Superheating

In physics, superheating is the phenomenon in which a liquid is heated to a temperature higher than its boiling point, without boiling. Superheating is achieved by heating a wiktionary:Homogeneous substance in a clean container, free of nucleation sites, while taking care not to disturb the liquid....
. Without boiling chips, a liquid heated in a smooth container can become superheated and release vapor
Vapor

A vapor or vapour is a substance in the gas phase at a temperature lower than its critical temperature.This means that the vapor can be condensation to a liquid or to a solid by increasing its pressure, without reducing the temperature....
 suddenly, sometimes violently. This sudden bubble of gas can cause the solution and reagents to be thrown out of the container, possibly causing severe burns, ruining an experiment, or simply making a mess.

Boiling chips are typically made of a porous material, such as alumina, calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate

Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula CalciumCarbonOxygen3. It is a common substance found as Rock in all parts of the world, and is the main component of seashells, snails, and eggshells....
, porcelain
Porcelain

Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and ....
 or carbon
Carbon

Carbon is a chemical element with chemical symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalence?making four electrons available to form covalent bond chemical bonds....
, and often have a nonreactive coating of PTFE (Teflon). This ensures that the boiling chips will provide effective nucleation sites, yet are chemically inert
Inert

In English, to be inert is to be in a state of doing little or nothing....
. In school laboratories, pieces of broken ceramic crucible
Crucible

A crucible is a heat-resistant container in which materials can be heated to very high temperatures.The use of crucibles to manufacture Crucible steel, introduced in England in the eighteenth century, was an important part of the Industrial Revolution....
s are often used.

Boiling chips should not be added to liquid that is already near its boiling point, as it could cause a large amount of vapor to form all at once. This could cause hot liquid to be expelled from the container, possibly causing heat or chemical burns.