What Is The Specific Heat Capacity Of The Sausage?

In part one of this calorimetry experiment, the heat gained by the system, the sausage, was lost by the surroundings, the water. This relates to the 1st Law of Thermodynamics that states “energy can neither be created nor destroyed”. In parts two and three of this experiment, the heat generated by the reaction was transferred to the solution. The first the first calculation I had to perform was finding the specific heat capacity of the sausage by using the formula, m_water C_(p,water) 〖ΔT〗_water+m_sausage C_(p,sausage) 〖ΔT〗_sausage=0 that is derived from the formulas q_(water=) 〖-q〗_sausage and q=mC_p ΔT. This value, which is the amount of energy in Joules that it takes to raise one gram of the sausage by 1°C, was then multiplied by the number

Then comparing the initial temperature of the water to the temperature after the reaction between various salts has occurred, I was able to determine which salt resulted in an exothermic reaction when combined with water. The NaCl and KNO3 were both endothermic reactions because the final temperature was less than the initial temperature. This means that heat was lost by the surroundings, the solution, and gained by the system, the reaction. MgSO4 was exothermic because its final temperature was greater than its initial temperature, which means that heat was gained by the solution and lost by the reaction. Therefore, MgSO4 was the best salt to use for the heat pack because it was the only salt we tested that released heat. After this, we ran three trials with varying volumes of water in order to find the volume ratio of salt to water that would produce a reaction that could release enough heat to raise the temperature of the solution by about 20°C. From this information, I could find the changes of enthalpy of the reaction, which was able to be a substitute for changes in heat content because the reaction took place at a constant