EXPERIMENT 302: Heat and Calorimetry

Analysis

Sources of Error

 One probable source of error is the room temperature due to the positioning of the equipments
and the working area to be worked on.
 Another error source is the flow of temperature due to the space provided for the stirrer and the
thermometer.
 Another thing that may cause this kind of percentage error is the weight of ice used in the second
part.
 Another factor is the water the students used, and it should be lukewarm water but our group used
tap water.
 The Calorimeter was not completely isolated and heat was lost also before the hot water was
poured into calorimeter and the room temperature


Concepts and Principles

 In this experiment about Heat and Calorimetry it tackles about the transfer of energy.
 It uses the law of heat exchange which states that the amount of the heat given up by the body is
equal to the heat absorbed by the body

Relation of Concepts and Principles to the experiment

 In this experiment it will also tackle about Latent heat, Latent heat is the heat needed to change
the phase without changing in its temperature, example this is the ice turned into water.
Conclusion

To sum this up the percentage error that the students accumulated in the first table a bit high with
22.4% on the aluminum , but in the second table particularly in the Trial 2 students obtained higher
percentage error, for about 23.89% and it’s beyond the acceptable percentage error limit and some factors
that may cause this kind of percentage error is the weight of ice used in the experiment another factor is
the water wes used, and it should be lukewarm water but our group used tap water. It’s recommendable
that students should take in to consideration these factors in order to avoid enormous errors like this, and
this scheme will serves as a lesson for the students in the future experiments.

We started the experiment by identifying the weight of Aluminum metal, water and the
calorimeter, after that we boiled the water in the beaker we submerged the Aluminum metal and Copper
Metal in the boiling water and waited for a momentfor the metal to absorb the heat, the ideal temperature
should be 100°C but while doing the Trial 1 using an Aluminum Metal it just reached 95 ̊C then we
placed the hot metal in the calorimeter containing a water having a temperature of 27̊C and recorded the
temperature of the mix, the temperature of the mix is denoted as 𝑡𝑚𝑖𝑥 . After gathering the relevant data
we proceeded to the next trial but this time the students used Copper as the material submerged in the
liquid. In this trial we reached the ideal temperature of the boiling water with Copper metal submerged in
it. Doing the same procedure like what the students done in the first trial and calculate the Experimental
Specific Heat of each material. In the Part 2 of the experiment the students used the relevant data they’ve
collected in the first part like the temperature of the mixture or denoted as 𝑡𝑚𝑖𝑥 . We were handed the ice
for each trial and then told to measure the mass of water in the beaker after that they placed the ice in the
water, after the ice is already melted they noted the temperature of the mixture. In order for the students to
determine the mass of the ice they subtracted the mass of the water in the mass of the mixture after that
the students computed for the latent heat of fusion of ice by applying what they’ve learned in the
discussion.

Experimental Specific Heat increases the Actual Specific also increases, so the students
concluded that it is directly proportional with each other. Since the specific heat is constant it shouldn’t
vary because “energies of molecules are quantized.” It means that it’s the capability of the material to
determine the amount of heat absorption, hence when the material increases its temperature the kinetic
energy of the molecules will also increase.
 The most common type of calorimeter in engineering used is the bomb calorimeter, designed to
measure the heat of combustion. Typically, a bomb calorimeter consists of a large container filled with
water, into which is placed a smaller container, the combustion crucible. The crucible is made of metal,
having thick walls with an opening through which oxygen can be introduced. In addition, the combustion
crucible is designed to be connected to a source of electricity. The bomb calorimeter that Berthelot
designed in 1880 measured the caloric value of fuels, and was applied to determining the thermal
efficiency of a heat engine. A heat engine is a machine that absorbs heat at a high temperature, performs
mechanical work, and as a result, gives off heat at a lower temperature.

References
Walker , J., Halliday, D., and Resnick R. (2014) Principles of Physics, 10th Edition., John Wiley &Sons
Singapore Pte. Ltd. Freedman, R., Young, H. (2012).
http://www.scienceclarified.com/everyday/Real-Life-Physics-Vol-2/Heat-Real-life-
applications.html#ixzz5hJxuCmM4
University Physics with Modern Physics. San Francisco, CA: Pearson Education, Inc
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/thermalP/Lesson-2/Calorimeters-and-Calorimetry
https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/labman1/spheat.htm