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ABSTRACT

Heat capacity is a form of energy which transfers among particles in a substance (or
system) by means of kinetic energy of those particles. This paper discusses how to determine the
specific heat of a metal and the latent heat of fusion of an ice. This experiment will prove the
theory behind heat and calorimetry which is Q=mcDT.

INTRODUCTION
Heat is the form of energy that may be transferred if there is a difference in the
temperature. The amount of heat, Q, required to raise the temperature of a solid body at constant
pressure depends on the change in temperature, DT, of the body, its mass, m, and a characteristic
of the material forming the body called its specific heat, C. This relationship is expressed by the
equation Q = mCDT and the dimensions of C are thus heat per unit mass per unit temperature
change. The values of C do depend on temperature with those of common metals such as
aluminum and brass increasing a few percent as the temperature increases from 20C to 100C,
for example, while that for iron or steel increases about 10% over the same range. Since these are
not large changes, average specific heats are often quoted in handbooks for such fairly broad
temperature ranges.
Historically the amount of heat, Q, was originally expressed in terms of calories. The
calorie was defined most accurately as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1
gram of water from 14.5C to 15.5C at 1 atmosphere pressure. With this definition the specific
heat of water between 0C and 100C is 1.00 cal/gmC to within better than 1%. The use of the
calorie began before it was established that heat was a form of energy and that 1 calorie is the
equivalent of about 4.18 Joules. Thus in the SI system of units specific heats, that is the values of
C for particular materials, are expressed as J/kgC and there is no need for the calorie.
However, since so much work involving heat has used the calorie and since the specific heat of
water is unity when it is employed, it remains a common unit and will be used in this work. The
food Calorie, with a capital C is 1000 of these calories or 1 kilo-calorie.

The process of measuring quantities of heat exchanged is called calorimetry. In this experiment
the objective is to determine the specific heat of a metal and to determine the latent heat of fusion
of ice.
Theory:
We know that when two bodies, initially at different temperatures, are placed in intimate contact,
in time they will come to equilibrium at some intermediate temperature. Provided no heat is lost
to or gained from the surroundings, the quantity of heat lost by the hotter body is equal to that
gained by the colder body. This is the process which occurs in the method of mixtures that you
will use. The metal sample whose specific heat is to be measured is heated in boiling water to
about 100C. It is then quickly transferred to an aluminum calorimeter cup which contains cold
water of known temperature. When the metal sample and calorimeter cup come to equilibrium,
the common temperature is measured with a thermometer. It is assumed that the transfer of heat
between the thermometer and the system is small enough to be neglected. If the net heat
exchange with the surroundings can be kept small, then the heat lost by the metal sample equals
the heat gained by the water and the calorimeter cup.
Let Ms be the mass of the sample whose specific heat is Cs. Let Ts be its temperature before it is
placed in the calorimeter. Let Mw and Cw be the mass and specific heat of the water and let Mc
and Cc the mass and specific heat of the calorimeter cup. Denote the temperature of the water
and calorimeter cup before the sample is added by Tw and the final temperature of the mixture
by Tf. Now use these42 symbols to express mathematically the situation when a hot object (the
sample) is placed in contact with a cooler one (the water and the calorimeter cup) and the two are
allowed to exchange heat until they reach a common temperature. From this equation derive an
expression for the specific heat of the sample in terms of the other quantities.

METHODOLOGY
This experiment is entitled heat and calorimetry and is divided into two parts. First part
is determining the specific heat of metals. The materials used are electric stove, calorimeter,
thermometers, copper metal, aluminum metal, beaker, weights, digital weighing scale and a cup
ice.
In part 1 of the experiment we must boil water in the
beaker and then immerse the metal in it, one metal at a time. In this
part, it is important to immerse the metal in the boiling water for a
long time because we need to heat up the metal to absorb heat from
the boiling water, so that if we transfer the metal in the calorimeter,
we can get a loss error result. In the other hand, if we immerse the
metal for a short period of time, the metal will not absorb more
heat that will heat up the calorimeter. Let the metal absorbs heat
first and then measure its temperature using thermometer. We need
to wipe off the excess water that remains in the metal, because it can affect the initial
temperature. Water in the metal has different temperature than the metal that can have a result of
error in the experiment. And once measured, put the heated metal in the calorimeter with tap
water in it and then measure the calorimeter. Using the Law of Heat exchange, a derived
equation was made to solve for the specific heat of the metal. We computed for the percent error
by referring to table 1 for the actual specific heat of the aluminum metal.

In part 2 of the experiment, we are required to get the latent heat of fusion of ice. We
measure the calorimeter, water and the temperature of water and ice. We put the ice in the
calorimeter and melt it. Our initial temperature of ice is 0C. Since, it is hard to determine the
initial temperature of ice; we assume the initial temperature of ice by means of its property that
ices have a freezing point of 0C and melting point of 0C. We get the value of mass of ice by
subtracting the total mass from the water and calorimeter. And once the ice is being moved into
the calorimeter, it is important to wipe off the water from the surface of the ice, because excess
water can affect the mass of the ice when measuring it after melting it in the calorimeter. Since
we don't need the excess water, we could rather wipe it off to get less error. If there will be a
different mass of ice, then the latent heat will depend on the mass of the ice. We determine the
percentage error using 80 cal/g as the actual value of latent heat of ice.

ANALYSIS
This table is the Specific Heats of Substances and in
this table is where we will be comparing the results of what
we get in the experiment. In the first part of the experiment,
after doing the step by step procedures, we got 48
temperature for aluminum and 59
also got 22

and 22

initial

for copper metal. We

respectively for the initial

temperature of calorimeter and an initial temperature of 25

for water in aluminum and copper

metal. The final temperature of mixture for aluminum is 29

while for copper is 16 . The

experimental specific heat of aluminum metal is 0.2406 cal/gcopper metal, the experimental specific heat is 0.0936 cal/g-

having a %error of 1.20%. For


having a 2.07% error.

It is important to immerse the metal in the boiling water for a long time for it to let the
metal gain some heat so that it will reach its thermal equilibrium with the boiling water. The
water needs to be wipe off from the metal surface before dropping it into the calorimeter because
the water will have an additional temperature when its place on the calorimeter. The mixture
will have inappropriate equilibrium temperature. One advantage of using the stirrer of the
calorimeter in mixing the metal and water because it will shorten the time to reach the thermal
equilibrium of the mixture.
In the second part , the experimental latent heat of fusion of ice is 79.0676 cal/g while the
actual value is 80 cal/g. this have a percentage error of 1.655%. this means that there is only a
minimal error in the experiment.
For this part, the initial temperature of ice is 0 . In this part, it is also important to wipe
off the water from the ices surface before putting it in the calorimeter because excess water can
affect the mass of the ice when measuring it after melting in the calorimeter.

CONCLUSION
Our group was able to determine both the specific heat of the two metals given,
Aluminum and Copper. Another thing is to determine also the fusion of ice.

The experiment shows how heat of the surrounding can affect the temperature of an
object. Heat can be defined as the form of energy transferred to another object. There must be a
difference in temperatures of the substance to have heat or energy transfer. The specific heat is
the amount of heat per unit mass required to raise the temperature by one degree Celsius. The
relationship between heat and temperature change is expressed in the form shown below where c
is the specific heat. The relationship does not apply if a phase change is encountered, because the
heat added or removed during a phase change does not change the temperature. By this formula,
we can see the relationship of heat to mass and temperature. Heat is directly proportional to mass
and change in temperature. The object needs more heat, which means greater final temperature,
if there is greater mass, and vice versa. Also, from the equation and after the experiment, I can
conclude that heat absorb by the metal depends on the property of the metal to absorb heat. The
more heat it absorb the lesser the specific heat of that metal. They are inversely proportional to
each other. Another thing is mass of ice is inversely proportional to the latent heat. The more
weight the ice contain, the lesser the latent heat of fusion.

In the first part, the possible sources of errors are the time the metal is immersed in
boiling water, the measurement of temperature and the room temperature, since we are
performing in the laboratory with air conditioned room. This can be minimized by performing
the experiment fast and consistent. In the second part, the possible sources of errors are the room
temperature, The mass of ice before and after putting it in the calorimeter and the measurement
of temperature.

REFERENCES
http://www.physics.fsu.edu/users/ng/courses/phy2048c/lab/calorimetry/calorimetry.pdf
http://www.chm.davidson.edu/vce/calorimetry/heatcapacity.html

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