= Boiling chip
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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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