Degrees of Saturation

A porous item like a sponge often has a high degree of saturation.

The term degree of saturation has many meanings. A number of industries and sciences have adopted the term to express certain phenomenon. Saturation means how much has been absorbed or can be absorbed. It is a useful term to describe how much water is absorbed, how much electricity is absorbed or how light is absorbed by color.

Chemistry

In chemistry, saturation is the amount of a substance that can be absorbed.

In chemistry, the degree of saturation refers to the amount of a substance that can be absorbed by another substance. Often, it refers to how much water can be absorbed into soil, rock, the air or another object. It also refers to how much of a substance, such as salt, can be absorbed into water.

The three degrees of saturation are unsaturated, saturated and super saturated. Various industries have applied the term to how much of a substance is absorbed by another substance. This term is often used by gardeners, farmers and construction workers to indicate the amount of water in the soil. Engineers use the term degree of saturation to indicate how much water has been frozen into the soil in permafrost. The term is also used by cooks to describe the amount of salt that can be absorbed by water or another liquid.

Weather

Frizzy hair is often caused by humidity, which is air that is highly saturated with moisture.

The amount of water in the atmosphere is called relative humidity. Using the relative humidity and the temperature, one can calculate the dew point. There are several online calculators that will calculate the dew point if you know the relative humidity and the temperature. Meteorologists use the term degree of saturation to determine the dew point. Dew point is the temperature at which dew will accumulate. The degree of saturation, or relative humidity, is expressed in a percentage. Relative humidity is also used to calculate the heat index in the summer and the wind chill factor in the winter. The amount of moisture in the air affects how cold or hot it feels to our bodies.

Traffic

In traffic, saturation refers to the amount of cars on the road comparative to what that road can handle.

In traffic engineering, the degree of saturation refers to how much traffic is in a given area in relation to its capacity for handling traffic. This term is usually applied to intersections. It is a way to evaluate how well the current roadways are handling the amount of traffic that is traveling on them. This measurement is used to determine if new roads need to be built or if new roads need to be expanded to accommodate traffic. It is also used to determine the timing of traffic lights within a town or city.

Telecommunications and Electronics

Phone systems can often become oversaturated.

Telecommunications specialists use this term much like traffic engineers do. It is a term to express how much traffic a phone or electronics system is experiencing in relation to its capacity to handle the load. If a system is overloaded, resources are reallocated to accommodate the work load. If the system regularly overloads, a system upgrade is necessary.

Color

A highly saturated color is often rich or deep in appearance.

Artists and photographers use the degree of saturation to describe the purity of color. A color on one side of the color wheel has none of the color opposite it on the wheel. The closer colors are to each other on the wheel, the more they share in color. The degree of saturation expresses the amount of color or vividness of color in a photograph or a work of art. The colors of the color wheel are mixed to produce other colors. The more that colors are mixed, the less pure they become.

Economics

If demand for a product can no longer increase, an economist will say it is saturated.

Economists use the term degree of saturation to indicate the point at which demand for a product will no longer increase. In theory, most products reach a point where sales will level off and there is no new market for the product. Most product investors look for growth to generate future revenue. When product sales level off, investors are unwilling to put money into the product.

References

• Science Dictionary; Degrees of Saturation
• Indiana Standards Resource; Degrees of Saturation
• Dictionary; Define: Saturation
• Sidra Solutions; Glossary of Road Traffic Analysis Terms
• Image Permanence Institute