specific heat capacity (Required Practical)

Question 1

how can you work out the specific heat capacity for vegetable oil

Answer 1

1. place a beaker on a balance and press 0
2. add oil and record the mass of the oil
3. place a thermometer and on immersion heater into the oil
4. read the starting temperature of the oil
5. Wrap the beaker in insulating foam to reduce thermal energy transfer to the surroundings.
6. connect a joule-meter into a power-pack to the immersion heater
7. time for 3mins (Allows the temperature to rise up and get an accurate reading of the temperature)
8. Read the number of joules of energy that passed into the immersion heater.
9. read the final temperature of the oil

Question 2

what does the joule-meter do

Answer 2

tells us how many joules of electrical energy pass through to the immersion heater

Question 3

where can there be sources of inaccuracy in the experiment and give a solution (the colutions are in brackets

Answer 3

thermal energy can pass out of the beaker and into the air (using a insulator with a low thermal conductivity)

not all of the thermal energy being passed into the oil (make sure that the immersion heater is full submerged

incorrectly reading the thermometer (use an electronic temperature probe)