Heat Energy to Specific Heat

Question

In the laboratory a student finds that it takes 155 Joules to increase the temperature of 11.0 grams of gaseous oxygen from 22.6 to 39.0 degrees Celsius.

The specific heat of oxygen calculated from her data is  ______J/g°C.

Answer 1

Hello, Omar,

Specific heat is defined as a measure of how much energy is required to raise the temperature of a defined amount of a substance (e.g., 1 gram, kg, mole, etc.) by 1 degree (C or K, sometimes F).

In this problem we are told that 155 Joules was able to raise 11.0 grams of oxygen by (39.0 - 22.6) 16.4 C. We want units of J/gC, so put the data into that format:

155 Joules/((11.0 grams)*(16.4C))

= 0.8592 J/gC is the specific heat of oxygen

Round to 0.859 J/gC for 3 sig figs.

Bob