latent heat of fusion

[tRNA]

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what is latent heat of fusion?
scaum says (pg25) it's when you go from liquid water to solid ice.
I have always known "fusion" means melting not solidification because that's just one of the few things that stuck with me from gen chem class + I googled it and it says latent heat of fusion means melting so what's up with scaum's!!!

anyone else understands fusion to be freezing/solidification???

 

[anesthesia_209]

It can go either way. Both require the same amount of heat but one is the negative of the other. This goes for the heat of vaporization as well.

 

[Doa110]

It's both!

The Latent heat of fusion is the amount of thermal energy that must be absorbed (solid to liquid) or released (liquid to solid). The temperature that actually change of phase occurs is the meltin point.

So when water is becoming ice, 1st the temperature decreases untill it reaches below freezing point, then at that point more thermal heat needs to be released before the temp falls more and solidification occurs. That heat is the latent heat of fusion.

Hope this helps!

 

[orthodocs12]

well, technically, fusion refers to the phase change from solid to liquid, and crystallization refers to liquid to solid. Also, at the boiling point, condensation is gas to liquid, and vaporization is liquid to gas. But yes, the actual energy needed to convert from one phase to another is the same at the melting and boiling point, respectively.