Lab: Determining The Specific Heat Of Copper

Specific Heat Lab

Procedure: In order to find the specific heat of copper and the percent error of the calculations make the first step that need to be taken is to measure the mass of the copper. The mass needs to be between 25-30 grams of copper and put into a test tube. After finding the mass of the copper place two test tube holders on the test tube and suspend the copper filled test tube into a hot water bath provided by teacher. While the metal is heating, look up the real specific heat of copper and construct a double cup calorimeter. Add 100.0 ml of water to the calorimeter and take the temperature of the water. The temperature should be around 20.0-25.0° C. After the copper filled test tube has been in the hot water bath for ten minutes, put the hot copper into the calorimeter, put the lid on the calorimeter, stir the water with copper in it and take the highest temperature that the copper/water mix reaches. After taking the temperature separate the water from the copper and return the copper to the correct container. To find the specific heat divide the heat transferred by the mass times the temperature change (Cp=Q/m x ΔT). To find the percent error, the actual specific heat of copper need to be subtracted from the specific heat found, be divided by the actual specific heat time 100. Repeat this experiment two more times , changing the mass of the copper or the time you heated it.

Claim: The average specific heat found during the experiment was 0.36.

This was found by dividing the heat transferred by the mass times the temperature change (Cp=Q/m x ΔT) of all three trials. Then the specific heats of all the trials and divided that by the number of trials (three). All of the specific heats add up to 1.07 and 1.07 divided by three equals 0.36, the average. The average percent error of the experiments is 7.7% because all of the percent errors from the trials added together equals 23 and 23 divided by three equals

7.7%.

Evidence:

One possible source of error in all three trials are that the experiment is conducted over the span to two days, making it so you will not be using the same tools as you did on the first day as the second day. The hot water that is heating the copper in the test tube will also not be the same temperature as the day before. Lastly, when the experiment was conducted all three copper samples from the trials were in the hot water bath for only about eight minutes instead of the ten minutes due to shortage of time on the first day of lab. This may have affected how hot the water in the calorimeter got. If the copper had been in the hot water bath for ten minutes instead of eight it may have heated up more. These errors could have been avoided if the same tools had been used as the day before. If the water had been at the same temperature as the day before. The copper had been in for the proper amount of time.

Reasoning: