Specfic heat capacity

Materials change temperature by different amounts depending on there composition. A metal pan heats up quicker than a liquid because the atoms in the metal are closer together and heat up quicker.

The amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of a kilogram of an object by 1°C is called the Specific Heat Capacity.

Lets take a simple example, place the same amount of water and oil in two saucepans and heat them, after 3 mins the water’s temperature has changed by 29.4°C (54.5 – 25.1) and the oil has changed by 47°C (70.2 – 23.2).

Water start	Water end
Oil start	Oil end

Oil has a different composition compared to water, which means that it takes more energy to raise water by 1° than it would with oil. It also takes more energy to boil a liter of water than it does to boil half a liter. To illustrate this point we measured the amount of time it takes to boil a kettle with 500ml and 1 litre. You can see below that 500ml takes 1 minute 27 seconds where as the 1 litre takes 2 minutes 25 seconds.

500ml start	500ml end	1000ml start	1000ml end

You can see for the above two examples that the Specfic Heat Capacity depends on the type of material and the weight of material.

Heat gained or lost = Specfic Heat Capacity x Mass x Change in temperature

Specfic Heat Capacity for different materials is listed below.