So Many Questions, or one, that is, Why Bottles Sweat?
It’s a question as old as bottles themselves. Why do bottles sweat when it has a cold drink in it? Does it have anything to do with what drink is in my bottle? How does the water get to the outside of the bottle, when it is fully closed? And can I use my bottle’s sweat to help with my sweat?
Take a long breath, wipe off the sweat from your forhead and read along to get the answer to all these questions and more.
It All Boils Down to Basic Science.
The answer is actually really simple. Condensation! Condensation occurs when warm air comes in contact with a cold surface. Here is a basic rundown of how it works. There are water particles all over the air; this is what determines humidity. The more water there is in the air, the higher the humidity. These particles move very quickly (the hotter a particle is, the faster it moves). When these water particles interact with the cold bottle you are holding, they slow down and get colder. Once the particles water vapor gets cold enough it turns back into liquid water. That is the story behind why bottles sweat. This is essentially the same thing that happens when water is put in the freezer. The particles slow down, the liquid starts to reach the temperature of the freezer and it freezes. Instead of going from gas to liquid, it goes from liquid to solid.
Think about it, the water bottle does not sweat when it is in the fridge (go check!); this is because the environment is the same temperature as the bottle itself. As soon as you take it out though, BOOM! It starts sweating like it just ran a marathon. Long story short is sweating only happens when the bottle is colder than the environment it’s in. The condensation (or sweat) is not connected to the drink in the bottle, or even whether or not there is a drink in the bottle at all, just if the bottle is cold.
So, if you put an empty cold bottle in the heat, will condensation still happen? Yes! You have more than likely seen this all over already. Condensation is what causes glasses to fog up if you go outside into the heat, or wet car windows when you wake up in the morning, or even grass to be wet when it hasn’t rained in days.
Why do certain bottles not sweat?
It all comes back to the temperature of the bottle itself. Almost all metal bottles advertise themselves as “seat-proof”. All the label means is that the outside of the bottle stays cool even when the inside is burning hot or freezing cold. The way most bottle companies do this is by using 2 layers of stainless steel. The 2 layers work to stop the cold from getting to the outside. This means the outside of the bottle is almost the same temperature as the actual outside so no condensation occurs. This is also what keeps the drinks cold or warm in the bottles. If you were to cool one of these bottles in the fridge then remove it, condensation will affect all the same.
How can I stop my regular bottle from ‘sweating’ or condensation?
The way of our elders says to put a sock in it, or in this case, on it. The sock absorbs the water particles and minimizes the sweating. If you don’t want to walk around with a sock on your bottle though, you can always just use a sleeve for your bottle. Less sweating also actually means that the drink keeps its temperature for longer too.
Other Related Questions:
Why does my mirror fog up after a hot shower?
You may think I lied about this whole colder temperature situation, when thinking about showers and mirrors. Since most of us take showers with water bordering the temperature of an active volcano. This situation is actually the same process but in reverse. The water is so hot that much of it evaporates. The hot water also raises the room temperature by quite a bit. The mirror takes longer to match the temperature of the air. So the evaporated water moves straight towards the colder mirror causing condensation.
Is the water on my bottle clean?
The water on a bottle comes from water vapor, which means it left all its impurities once it evaporated. This water is actually cleaner than most drinking water you will find. The same is true for water that is made by air conditioners or dehumidifiers. So, can you drink this water? That all depends on how clean the container is. The outside of a bottle and a dehumidifier container are probably not the cleanest places in the world. Unless you are maintaining the container, I would not necessarily suggest drinking from this water.
So there it is, the answer to the age old question, why do bottles sweat. And I broke it all down without even breaking a sweat.