Breating in steam

[Yai]

If you breath in steam, won't it condense in your lungs and drown you ?

[andy hughes]

Your lungs already work on water vapour, which is what steam is, and it would be impossible to inhale enough to drown - steam exists within oxygen, and your lugs will always separate the correct amount to keep you alive, and exhale the rest.

[Kit]

Steam condenses when it hits a cooler surface. Water vapour is more likely to condense in your nose, mouth or airways because your lungs are hotter than structures closer to the outside. Any excess moisture in the steam will condense on the way in and give you a drippy nose rather than drowning you. In fact, your air passages are designed to provide optimum humidity for your lungs, which is why it is always best to breathe through your nose - air is warmed, humidified and some bacteria filtered out on the way through. Breathing through your mouth humidifies the air to a certain extent, but it is relatively dry and more laden with bacteria than if it goes through your nose.

[incitatus]

PEDANT MODE ON: true steam is not water vapour, but rather gaseous water. It exists at temperatures of more than 100 celsius and so would scald you to death rather than drown you. the misty stuff you see over hot drinks is water vapour, and not steam, and is as the hughster says, pretty harmless. If you could withstand the heat steam will suffocate you, not drown you: if you breathe pure steam it will be like breathing any other inert gas, you asphyxiate. If you did condense true steam you only get 18ml of liquid water for every 35 l or so of steam you breathe in at best. It would take some while to fill your lungs