Technically (simply) steam is water vapor over 100°C, you can’t see it. When it cools it condenses to form droplets and then that’s we call steam in everyday use if it comes from a hot boiling source. Hot water less than 100°C still evaporates from your bath and in the cooler air condenses into what we all call steam.

How is it formed? When water is heated at atmospheric pressure, its temperature rises until it reaches 212°F, the highest temperature at which water can exist at this pressure. Additional heat does not raise the temperature, but converts the water to steam.

It will just form at 100 degrees(just about to vaporize-saturated liquid, just about to condense-saturated vapor), but there is no limit for its temperature to rise. Same goes for ice.

Q: Is it true that water (steam and ice) can not get hotter than 212 degrees and colder than 32 degrees? It is not true that water can only get up to 212 degrees and as cold as 32 degrees. After water changes from a liquid to a gas (at 212 degrees Fahrenheit) it can actually heat up much hotter than that.

generally at the critical point of the vapor dome the max temp and pressure that a steam can have is 375 degree celcius…. above this temp steam is generally called superheated steam……the temp used in steam powerplants using superheated steam can rise the temp to as high as 600 degrees with increased pressure too.

Saturated Steam Temperatures

Water in an open container can’t exceed about 100 °C because it just boils and floats away as steam. Water in a strong, closed, pressurized container can be as hot as fire or hotter. Anything can be hotter than fire in the right conditions.

Steam is water that has been boiled into a vapor. It takes very little heat energy to raise the temperature of water to reach its boiling point. Say you put a pint of 32 0F water in a pan on the stove. A pint of water weighs approximately 1 pound.

In the later years of steam, boiler pressures were typically 200 to 250 psi (1.38 to 1.72 MPa). High-pressure locomotives can be considered to start at 350 psi (2.41 MPa), when special construction techniques become necessary, but some had boilers that operated at over 1,500 psi (10.34 MPa).

By definition, a high pressure boiler is one that operates above 15 psi, while a low pressure boiler is one that operates at 15 psi or lower. Steam heating systems run with even lower pressure, typically at less than 1 psi in all.

Low-pressure steam is limited to 15 PSI (pounds per square inch). High-pressure steam applications require more than 15 PSI.

   Typically, steam below 50-psig (3.5 barg) is termed as low pressure steam. Steam above 50-psig (3.5 barg) but below 250-psig (17.5 barg) is termed as medium pressure steam. Steam above 250-psig (17.5 barg) is termed as high pressure steam.

High pressure (HP) steam can cause severe burns to plant personnel or even fatalities. HP steam leaks are typically invisible to the human eye but are very noisy.

High Pressure Steam Boiler and Process Load While low pressure steam boilers are most commonly used to provide heat for buildings and facilities, high pressure steam boilers are designed to provide energy for a variety of processes.

High-pressure steam boilers are essential for providing higher energy transfer to down-stream point-of-use equipment. High-pressure steam is also used directly in industrial processes such as vulcanizing rubber, food processing, and manufacturing other goods.

Here are some typical applications for steam in industry:

• Heating/Sterilization.
• Propulsion/Drive.
• Motive.
• Atomization.
• Cleaning.
• Moisturization.
• Humidification.

Steam is a cloud-based gaming library. One of its most popular features is the ability for users to use any computer to play games they buy/download to their Steam accounts. This also allows users to store a large collection of games without using too much computer memory.