Question #cf198

1 Answer
Nov 29, 2016

"0.521 J g"^(-1)""^@"C"^(-1)

Explanation:

The idea here is that the heat given off by the metal is equal to the heat absorbed by the water.

color(blue)(ul(color(black)(-q_"metal" = q_"water")))

The minus sign is used here because heat given off carries a negative sign.

The first thing to do here is to convert the volume of water to mass by using water's density. At 20.0^@"C", water has a density of

rho ~~ "0.99821 g mL"^(-1)

http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/javascript/water-density.html

This means that your sample has a mass of

100.0 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("mL"))) * "0.99821 g"/(1color(red)(cancel(color(black)("mL")))) = "99.821 g"

Now, water has a specific heat of

c_"water" = "4.18 J g"^(-1)""^@"C"^(-1)

To figure out how much heat was absorbed by the water, use the equation

color(blue)(ul(color(black)(q = m * c * DeltaT)))

Here

  • q is the heat absorbed / given off
  • m is the mass of the sample
  • c is the specific heat of the substance
  • DeltaT is the change in temperature, defined as the difference between the final temperature and the initial temperature

In your case, the sample goes from 20.0^@"C" to 24.5^@"C", which means that

DeltaT_ "water" = 24.5^@"C" - 20.0^@"C" = 4.5^@"C"

Plug your values into the above equation to find the amount of heat absorbed by the water

q_"water" = 99.821 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("g"))) * "4.18 J" color(red)(cancel(color(black)("g"^(-1)))) color(red)(cancel(color(black)(""^@"C"^(-1)))) * 4.5 color(red)(cancel(color(black)(""^@"C")))

q_"water" = "1877.6 J"

This is exactly how much heat was given off by the metal when it cooled from 150.0^@"C" to 24.5^@"C". The change in temperature for the metal will be

DeltaT_"metal" = 24.5^@"C" - 150.0^@"C" = -125.5^@"C"

Keep in mind that

color(blue)(ul(color(black)(-q_"metal" = q_"water")))

which means that you have

q_"metal" = - "1877.6 J"

Rearrange the equation to solve for c_"metal"

q_"metal" = m_"metal" * c_"metal" * DeltaT_"metal"

c_"metal" = q_"metal"/(m_"metal" * DeltaT_"metal")

Plug in your values to find

c_"metal" = (color(red)(cancel(color(black)(-)))"1877.6 J")/("28.7 g" * (color(red)(cancel(color(black)(-))) 125.5^@"C")

c_"metal" = color(darkgreen)(ul(color(black)("0.521 J g"^(-1)""^@"C"^(-1)))

The answer is rounded to three sig figs.