specific heat capacity

• different materials have different specific heat capacities
• more energy needs to be transferred to the thermal energy store of some materials to increase their temp than others
• materials that need to gain lots of energy in their thermal energy stores to warm up also transfer loads of energy when they cool down again
• the measure of how much energy a substance can storee is called 'Specific Heat Capacity'
• specific heat capacity is the amount of energy needed to raise the temp of 1kg of a substancec by 1 degrees
• change in thermal energy(j) = mass(kg)*specific heat capacity(J/kgdegrees)*temp change(degrees)
• Investigation of specific heat capacity 


  1.to investigate a solid material (e.g copper), you'll need a block of the material with 2 holes in it, for the heater and thermometer to go into
• Investigation specific heat capacity 


  2.measure the mass of the block, then wrap it in an insulating layer (e.g thick layer of newspaper) to reduce the energy transferred from the block to the surroundings. insert the thermometer and heater as shown on the right
• Investigate specific heat capacities

  3.measure the intial temp of the block and set the potential difference (v) of the power supply to be 10V. Turn on the power supply and start the stopwatch
• Investigate specific heat capacities

  4.when you turn on the power, the current in the circuit does work on the heater, transferring energy electrically from the power supply to the heaters thermal energy store. This energy is then transferres to the materials thermal energy store by heating, causing the materials temp to increase
• investigating specific heat capacity


  5.as the block heats up, use the thermometer to measure its temp (e.g every minute) and keep an eye on the ammeter- the current through the circuit as nothing changes
• investigating specific heat capacity

  6.when youve collected enough readings turn off the power supply
• investigating specific heat capacity

  7.now you have some calculations to find the materials specific heat capacity