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Question

Sodium metal is sometimes used as a cooling agent in heat exchange units because of it's relatively high molar heat capacity of 28.2 J/mol C. what is the specific heat of sodium in J/g C? 

Answer 1

Look up the atomic weight of Na in your chemistry book.  Call it W.  Recall that the atomic weight of a substance is the mass in grams of 1 mole of the substance. 

 

Plug that into the specific heat.

 

Atomic weight of sodium:

 

W ≅ 23.0 g/mol

 

Replace 1 mole in the specific heat expression with 23.0 g and get

 

c = 28.2 J / (mol °C) = 28.2 J / (23.0 g °C) ≅ 1.23 J / (g °C)