A boiling chip is a small solid piece with cavities or a porous surface that supplies sites for heterogeneous nucleation of vapor bubbles in a heated liquid. Gas trapped in a cavity can help an incipient bubble survive the capillary pressure that would collapse a sufficiently small isolated bubble.
Many active sites encourage repeated bubble release, reducing the large, irregular boiling events associated with delayed nucleation and superheating. The chip changes the route by which boiling begins; it does not materially redefine the liquid's equilibrium boiling point. Its action is therefore understood through interface formation and bubble growth, rather than through a chemical conversion of the solvent.
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