A cooling tower primarily uses latent heat of vaporization (evaporation) to cool process water. What is the latent heat and what is the difference between latent heat and sensible heat?

Sensible heat: heating a substance in a solid, liquid or gaseous state, as long as its form is unchanged, after the heat is added, the temperature of the substance will rise, and the amount of heat added can be displayed in the temperature, that is, it does not change the substance. The heat that changes its temperature due to its shape is called sensible heat.

Latent heat: Latent heat is the heat absorbed or released during the phase change process of a substance. For example, when liquid water is heated, the temperature of the water rises. When the boiling point is reached, although the heat is continuously added, the temperature of the water does not rise and stays at the boiling point. The added heat only turns water into water vapor, that is, from liquid to gas. This kind of heat that does not change the temperature of the substance and causes the change of state (also called phase change) is called latent heat. The heat absorbed by a 1Kg liquid completely turning into saturated vapor at the same temperature is called the latent heat of vaporization at that temperature. It is represented by the symbol x and the unit is kJ/kg.

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