Lab 16: Specific Heat of a Metal

I. Introduction: The purpose of this lab was to identify an unknown metal by determining its specific heat. To find the unknown metal, we first put the metal block in water and put it on a hot plate. Once the water boiled, we took the metal out and placed it into a cup of cold water. We measured the temperature change of the metal indirectly by using the coffee cup and the water. After we recorded  the data, we  calculated the heat gained by the water and then. Using the heat gained and the data collected, we calculated the specific heat of the metal. Finally, we compared our calculated specific heat to a table of metals and their  specific heats and found what our metal was.

II. Data: 

III.Calculations: 

IV. Picture of Setup: 

V: Specific Heat and Identification: The specific heat of our metal was 378.9 J/kgC. The closest metal to this specific heat was brass so we identified our metal as brass.

VI: Error: Although our experimental yield was very close to the theoretical yield we still had room for some margin of error. We could have left the metal in the water to long causing it to become hotter than it should have been which would throw our data points off. Also our group broke a beaker in the process of transferring the metal so we could have left the metal in the open air for to long causing the metal to adapt to room temperature and lose heat.

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