Specific heat Capacity Required Pratical

Describe how to find specific heat capacity of vegetable oil

1)Place a beaker on a balance and press zero

2)Add oil to the beaker and record mass

3)Place a thermometer and an immersion heater into the oil.

4)Read starting temperature of the oil

5)Wrap beaker in insulating foam to reduce thermal energy transfer to the surroundings

6)Connect Joulemeter to the immersion heater with a power pack

7)Leave for 30 minutes to allow temperature to rise

8)Read total number of joules of energy passed into the immersion heater and final temperature of oil

9)Calculate specific heat capacity by doing = change in thermal energy/(Mass X temperature change)

What would be some sources of inaccurate in test and how would we solve it

1)Mistake-Thermal energy passing out of the beaker into the air-USE AN INSULATOR WITH A LOWER THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY

2)Mistake-Not all thermal energy passing into the oil-ENSURE IMMERSION HEATER IS FULLY SUBMERGED

3)Mistake-Incorrectly reading of thermometer-USE AN ELECTRONIC TEMPERATURE PROBE

4)Mistake-Thermal energy is not being spread though the oil-STIR THE OIL

How to do it with a block of metal?

1)Get a block of material with two holes for immersion heater and thermometer

2)Meaure mass of block with balance

3)Put immersion heater into one hole and connect it to a power supply. Make sure to connect joule meter to power supply and immersion heater to take readings

4)Place thermometer into other hole and recoding initial reading.

5)Insulate block to reduce energy transfer to surroundings

6)As block heats up take residing of temperature after 30 minutes

7)Calculate specific heat capacity and then repeat with different materials of block.

What is a systematic error in experiment

If balance or joule meter aren’t at 0

What’s a Random error in experiment?

-Not all energy is transfers into block so make sure to insulate blockx

Controls variables

Mass of block/Mass of oil

Independent variable

Temperature of metal block/Oil

Dependent variable

-Energy supplied to the metal block by heating

-Temperature change