The temperature of a piece of copper with a mass of 95.4 g increases from 25°C to 48°C when the metal absorbs 849 J of heat. What is the specific heat of copper?

1 Answer
Oct 30, 2015

#0.39"J"/("g" ""^@"C")#

Explanation:

A substance's specific heat tells you how much heat much be provided to increase the temperature of #"1 g"# of that substance by #1^@"C"#.

The equation that establishes a relationship between how much heat a substance must absorb in order to register a change in its temperature looks like this

#color(blue)(q = m * c * DeltaT)" "#, where

#q# - the amount of heat absorbed
#m# - the mass of the sample
#c# - the specific heat of the substance
#DeltaT# - the change in temperature, defined as the difference betwen the final temperature and the nitial temperature

In your case, you know that the temperature of #"95.4-g"# sample of copper increases from #25# to #48^@"C"# after absorbing #"849 J"# worth of heat.

Rearrange the equation to solve for #c# and plug in your values

#c = q/(m * DeltaT)#

#c = "849 J"/("95.4 g" * (48-25)^@"C") = 0.38693"J"/("g" ""^@"C")#

Rounded to two sig figs, the number of sig figs you ahve for the two temperatures of the copper sample, the answer will be

#c = color(green)(0.39"J"/("g" ""^@"C"))#

It's worth noting that the result matches listed values almost perfectly

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-metals-d_152.html