Specific Heat Capacity | Matter | Physics | FuseSchool

Specific Heat Capacity | Matter | Physics | FuseSchool

You might have noticed that if you are trying to boil a lot of water it takes longer than if you only wish to boil a small amount of water.

This is all because of something called ‘heat capacity’. Keep watching to learn more.

Before we get into the details, it is important to realise that there is a difference between ‘heat’ and ‘temperature’. Temperature is a way of describing how hot or cold an object is and is measured in °C, whereas heat is a form of energy and is measured in Joules (J). The more heat energy transferred to an object, the more its temperature will rise. So heat and temperature are related but are not the same.

So what is heat capacity? The heat capacity of a substance is defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of a material by 1°C. However, what’s more useful for us to think about is the specific heat capacity of a substance. This is, as it says in the name, a little more specific. It is the amount of heat required to raise 1 kilogram of a material by 1°C.

Different materials have different known specific heat capacities, but we aren't always given a table like this so, we need to know how to calculate specific heat capacities ourselves.

We have this equation, which can be written as symbols like this. The energy transferred is the heat energy absorbed or released. This equation can also be rearranged.

To work out the temperature change, subtract the old temperature from a new temperature.

Let's have a look at the problem. Pause the video and attempt to calculate the specific heat capacity of lead. How did you get on?

The energy transferred is this. The mass is this and the temperature change 10 °C because it's this, take away this. Using the rearranged equations substitute in the values and we get a hundred and twenty-eight joules per kilogram Celsius.

Here is another practice problem, pause the video and attempt to calculate the energy transferred to the LED. Did you get it right? We could divide it by 1000 to turn the answer into kilojoules. Notice that the answer is negative this time, it's because we called the LED the temperature change will always be negative if it is being cooled and positive is it being heated.

To summarise, specific heat capacity is the amount of energy needed to raise one kilogram of a substance by one °C. It's helpful because it allows us to work out how much energy we need to heat up or cool down the substance to decide the temperature. To calculate use the following equation.

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[theexpectedflop]

Specific heat capacity is the amount of energy to raise 1kg of object by 1 degree celsius, the higher the specific heat capacity of an object, the more effort will be needed to 'heat it up'. Metals are good conductors, whereas a water molecule is strongly bonded by hydrogen bonds, thus more 'effort' will be needed to heat water up than metals'. This explains why water has a higher specific heat capacity than metals.

[brixstongealon]

*1 month discussion in the school still cant understand.
*3 mins of youtube and now i understand the whole thing.
You deserve a medal sir.

[sifsif]

Why'd my teacher over complicate this, it's so simple

[sherlock.j.]

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[dcfanforlife]

You guys are literally life savers! Definitely sharing this channel to my friends!!

[Depression_]

This video makes me truly understand what's heat capacity, that's more useful than my Phy teacher's lesson

[nzehra]

Best explanation ever!
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[muhammadhassan]

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[rahilmirza]

Thanks for the video, i wish that you would be a teacher in my school. I find it easier to learn here thenn school

[harshvardhanrajput]

Very helpful and explained precisely. Thankyou very much.
But I have a question, we know that specific heat is the amount of heat required to heat 1kg of a substance to 1degree celsius but in questions we can see that more than 1degree and more than 1 kg of substance is heated then how do we find the specific heat capacity to be = heat absorbed * mass*temperature change ????

[m.abdullahtariq]

Whish my physics teacher could explain like this😂 but i will seriosly recommend this to my friends

[kent.]

This helped a ton for exams, thanks, brother.

[nushrat]

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[moizqureshi]

Very friutful video, nice explanation

[shakthimamathi]

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[meerabshahid]

Wow such an amazing video everything well explained

[HanerTheDestroyer]

Thank you so much for the video! I do need some clarifications for a question though:

What happens when a substance (like for example, water) is heated and it reaches its maximum heat capacity? Will it then undergo a phase change or something like that?

[chloobescore]

my teacher is so gonna over complicate this for no reason! 😂

[radika]

Wow that was amazing my physics teacher teacher got 1month for this 💫💫

[shamimbd]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Finally I can do some maths on this yay