Question

Before giving an injection, a nurse dabs some alcohol onto the patient`s arm. This makes the patient`s skin feels cold. Explain what happen`s to make the patients skin feel cold *

Answer 1

Answer:

Before giving an injection, a nurse dabs some alcohol onto the patient`s arm. This makes the patient`s skin feels cold. Explain Why ?

Evaporative cooling makes this to be possible

Explanation:

The concept

For a liquid to evaporate, there must be a breakdown of the bond between the molecules of the liquid. These bonds are broken when the molecules gain heat energy. So basically evaporation occurs when the molecules of the substance gain energy in form of heat.

Our Scenario

Just like the way our body excretes sweat on a sunny day, alcohol takes energy from the skin to evaporate. The bond holding the molecules of alcohol breaks faster due to its low boiling point and this account why it evaporates faster. The sudden evaporation of alcohol when dabbed on the skin results in quick utilization of heat energy making the skin feel cold for some time.

The utilization of heat energy from the skin results in evaporation cooling which makes the skin feel colder.