WARNING: Microwaving Water is DANGEROUS

THIS INFORMATION NEEDS TO BE SHARED! (Microwave water)

Microwaved water - MUST read

A 26-year old guy here in Australia, decided to have a cup of coffee. He took a cup of water and put it in the microwave to heat it up (something that he had done numerous times before).
I am not sure how long he set the timer for, but he told me he wanted to bring the water to a boil.

When the timer shut the oven off, he removed the cup from the oven. As he looked into the cup, he noted that the water was not boiling, but instantly the water in
the cup 'blew-up' into his face.

The cup remained intact until he threw it out of his hand but all the water had flown out into his face due to the build up of energy.

His whole face is blistered and he has 1st and 2nd degree burns to his face, which may leave scarring. He also may have lost partial sight in his left eye..

While at the hospital, the doctor who was attending to him stated that this is fairly common occurrence and water (alone) should never be heated in a microwave oven. If water is heated in this manner, something should be placed in the cup to diffuse the energy such as: a wooden stir stick, tea bag, etc..

It is however a much safer choice to boil the water in a tea kettle.

General Electric 's (GE) response:

Thanks for contacting us. I will be happy to assist you. The e-mail that you received is correct.

Micro waved water and other liquids do not always bubble when they reach the boiling point. They can actually get superheated and not bubble at all.

The superheated liquid will bubble up out of the cup when it is moved or when something like a spoon or teabag is put into it.

To prevent this from happening and causing injury, do not heat any liquid for more than two minutes per cup.

After heating, let the cup stand in the microwave for thirty seconds before moving it or adding anything into it.

Wow, that is a useful piece of info.

I did find that out myself already but interesting that it can be heated up that far.
I used to have fun with that when making myself tea, once you put suggar into the cup it will start bubble like mad

Yeah i found that out on accident once. qwell I found out a couple things you should not microwave. the first is a raw egg in the shell . that is bad. I thought hey maybe you can boil eggs in the microwave like you can on the stove top. Needless to say the eggs blew up in my face when I took them out of the microwave i had some pretty bad burns. DOH! I mean they went off like bombs i was amazed and burnt.

The second I wanted some instant coffee and boiled some water when I put the coffe in the cup after cooking the water in the microwave the coffee water exploded that was an odd occurrence one that threw me for a loop as I did not understand how it was possible for water to explode.

Needless to say I do not like using microwaves any more.

Interesting. I'd normally dismiss this as bullsh*t, but this happened to my mum years ago with milk.
When she took it out of the microwave, it immediately boiled up all over her hand and caused nasty burns

Also my colleague said he watched a documentary on this. It really can explode!

wow, i never knew that =s

its called Super Heating - heating of a liquid to a temperature above its normal boiling point. The superheated state is unstable, and it can very rapidly turn into liquid at the boiling point, plus a substantial quantity of vapor.

When does it happen?

1. Using a container with a very smooth surface, such as an unscratched glass or glazed container.
2. Heating for too long.
3. Quickly adding a powder, such as instant coffee (or sometimes even an object to stir it).
4. Standing with one's face above the container makes injury more likely.

Don't see the blackhat in this message but yeah putting a spoon of sugar in a boiling cup will do teh same thing. I dunno if it was the sugar or the spoon but damn it goes off real quick.

Jim

snowwhite said:

its called Super Heating - heating of a liquid to a temperature above its normal boiling point. The superheated state is unstable, and it can very rapidly turn into liquid at the boiling point, plus a substantial quantity of vapor.

When does it happen?

1. Using a container with a very smooth surface, such as an unscratched glass or glazed container.
2. Heating for too long.
3. Quickly adding a powder, such as instant coffee (or sometimes even an object to stir it).
4. Standing with one's face above the container makes injury more likely.

Click to expand...

Ahh Snow dear will you be my personal Bill Nye the science guy but a female version. *Note to self anything scientific talk to Snow cause Snow knows*

Ehh not sure if anything I have wrote in the past hour made an since I been up for a long time.

never seen it explode on its own, but definitely if you add something to it after like some sort of drink crystals it'll erupt like shown above....

Another thing never to do in a microwave which I learned the hard way is not to run it with nothing inside ....not unless you want to still USE your microwave after the light show

If the water has impurities in it (like most tap water) it will not explode. The impurities will make it "boil". Though using distilled water or really pure filtered water it has a high chance of exploding.

Microwaves..........work of the devil:yield:

is that a smurf in the video?

its called Super Heating - heating of a liquid to a temperature above its normal boiling point. The superheated state is unstable, and it can very rapidly turn into liquid at the boiling point, plus a substantial quantity of vapor.

Click to expand...

Correct, although you missed a very important point, this can/will only happen to distilled water (Water Without Any Impurities).

Good to know, thanks!

Yeah, pretty damned scary when you want to reheat your tea or whatever. But good to know the distilled water makes a difference.

Dan

I'm so going to try this
No, really.

To those of you who say it cannot happen with tap water I say bollocks. Basically because it has happened to me twice - fortunately my face was not over the mug when it happened , but it certainly happened. And guess what - both times I was using tap water.

wow, I can think of a few uses