Talk:Volatility (chemistry)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 January 2019 and 18 March 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Tokyodrift4. Peer reviewers: TJ.Jang.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 12:32, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Original article source
I noticed that the content of this article seems very similar to the content at this site. I think the article should be rewritten if the Wikipedia article was copied from this website.--GregRM 19:23, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Probably why it's listed as the only reference. I added the cleanup tag, it doesn't look great. 58.107.61.162 13:51, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

"Speed" and "faster" are a poor choice of words
This a quote from the lead-in paragraph:

''Volatility in the context of the natural sciences is a measure of the speed at which a substance turns into a vapor from a solid or liquid state. Usually, this refers to the liquid to gas phase transition known as evaporation. Thus, volatile substances evaporate faster, and less volatile substances evaporate more slowly.''

The words "speed" and "faster" are a very poor choice of words and, in my opinion, an incorrect choice.

I am revising the lead-in paragraph to read:

Volatility in the context of physics, thermodynamics and chemistry is a measure of the tendency of a substance to vaporize or how readily a substance vaporizes. At a given temperature, substances with higher vapor pressures will vaporize more readily than substances with a lower vapor pressure.''

- mbeychok 00:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC) Bold text

Problem with normal boiling point of propane
There is a discrepency between this page and the one for Vapor Pressure regarding the normal boiling point of propane. This page says its -43.7 deg C and the Vapor Pressure page has it listed as -42.1 deg C. Which is correct? 69.63.82.50 (talk) 17:30, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Problem with using Ammonium Chloride as an example of sublimation
According to the page on Ammonium Chloride, it does not sublimate. I'm not sure which page is incorrect, but it seems like it ought not be included as an example in the article here.216.10.193.21 (talk) 21:29, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

More theory needed
How about a section on what properties make a particular compound more volatile? That is, why is ethanol more volatile than water? Also, what is the relationship between volatility, boiling point, and vapor pressure/what's the difference between these? I've gone through the Wikipedia sites for these, and none of them seem to have explanations for differences in vapor pressure apart from the composition of a gas or the temperature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jojojlj (talk • contribs) 02:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Needs a complete rewrite
The references are all dead or do not lead to useful information. The first is fine, but it does not mention volatility... For me volatility is simply the vapor pressure, but expressed in units of mass per unit volume (I need to find a reference for that before doing a rework). So vapor pressure and volatility are simply interconvertible, when the behavior of the gas is close to that of an ideal gas. AlanParkerFrance (talk) 10:33, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Relation to flammability or explosiveness
As the term is used to describe fuel-like substances, it would be an improvement to this article if there was a connection to the concepts heading this section. I don't mean to ask for an explanation here in the talk-page, I mean as an addition to the article.

By reading or inference one can figure out that the characteristic of how quickly something becomes a vapor directly relates to how available it is to burn, but I don't think my layman's explanation would do it justice. Arbalest Mike (talk) 14:40, 6 October 2015 (UTC)