• Question: will steam condensed from boiling blue ink be blue or not

    Asked by cherry16 to Amar, Ana, Andrea, Leah, Matt on 10 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Anastasia Wass

      Anastasia Wass answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      I’m not sure about this but at a guess I don’t think so. Ink contains chemicals that dye it blue, as the water evaporates I think these would be left behind so the water would just be normal steam.

    • Photo: Andrea Hanvey

      Andrea Hanvey answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      i have no idea! but i would guess the answer is no, the molecules in inks are alot more complex than waters simple H2O so they would require alot more energy to boil them

    • Photo: Matthew Lam

      Matthew Lam answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      I agree with the others, the answer is no. Simply put, the chemicals that make the dye blue would not evaporate off with the steam so when the steam was condensed it would be a clear liquid. If you evaporated all the liquid off of blue ink, I imagine you would be left behind with a blue powder. I may be wrong though…scientists aren’t always right!!

      Interesting fact – if you put a beaker of water under low pressure it will boil at a much lower temperature because it is easier for the water molecules to escape and be released as vapour.

    • Photo: Amar Joshi

      Amar Joshi answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      The others have got there before me. Inks are usually dyes mixed in water. You can which coloured dyes by putting a drop of ink on some wet paper – the different dyes will separate from each other.

      The water will boil at ~100 degrees Celcius – the added ink means that water will boil at a different temperature. The condensed steam should be pure, distilled water while the ink gets darker and more concentrated.

      When the water has all gone you will either be left with a coloured powder or a thick dark liquid ink.

    • Photo: Leah Fitzsimmons

      Leah Fitzsimmons answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      For writing ink it is definitely true that the water part of the ink will boil first and evaporate, leaving the dye, and if you condensed what boiled off it would be clear water.
      However, there are some dyes used in printing inks that behave quite differently. These are known as ‘sublimation dyes’ and are used any printing process where liquid inks could run and give a messy result. These dyes stay coloured when they boil, although they are difficult to get hold of in the liquid state as they go from solid to gas very quickly (although most of them can be liquids, even though the name ‘sublimation dye’ suggests they don’t).

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