Question: can u turn a liquid into a gas

Hamish Cavaye answered on 24 Feb 2026:

Yes, most liquids will turn into a gas if you give them energy.
In a liquid, the atoms or molecules are all moving around each other but still attracted to each other, this keeps them together and keeps the liquid in what we call a “condensed state”. That just means that the atoms or molecules don’t have enough energy to move away from each other.

If you heat the liquid up, the atoms or molecules of that liquid start to move faster and faster until eventually they have enough energy to move away from the other molecules entirely. We often call this “boiling”, and the atoms or molecules that had a high enough energy to move away are now a gas.

This also happens even when we don’t add heat to a liquid, but more slowly. Sometimes the atoms or molecules in a liquid just happen to bump into enough other atoms or molecules to move to the surface and then fly away. We usually call this “evaporation” instead of boiling, but it’s a very similar process that results in the liquid becoming a gas.