Specific Heat Lab Report Essay

The purpose of this experiment has been met and all heat changes in each part of the experiment were measured. In Part I we had to calculate the specific heat (SH) and the atomic mass of a metal. In this case, Copper was examined and the specific heat of Copper was calculated to be 0.262 J/g℃, even though the actual specific heat is 0.387 J/g℃. The percent error of that calculation is 32.299%. A considerable reason for this error is inaccurately reading the thermometer to the tenth degree digit (0.1℃). The atomic mass of Copper calculated is 95.038g/mole while the actual atomic mass is 63.548g/mole yielding a percent error of 49.553%. The error calculated can still be attributed to inaccurately reading the thermometer when gathering data. The final calculation made was using the entire class data and plotting it on a graph in order to prove D-P Law. The graph yielded a slope of 25.909 while the theoretical slope was calculated to be 24.621 yielding a percent error of 5.231%. According to the D-P Law atomic mass equals 24.9J/mol℃ which means that the data collected by the entire class approximately yielded a close slope verifying the law stated. The amount of percent error in this individual experiment was a good amount which displayed a fair amount of distance from what the actual calculations should have been. The class data was nearly class and …show more content…
This reaction was an exothermic process as it yielded a heat change of ∆H= -1316.700J. The final reading of the thermometer displayed an increase of temperature from its initial temperature which is an indication of heat being released as in an exothermic process. The molar enthalpy change was calculated to be -65.835Kj/mole while the theoretical calculation is -55.800Kj/mole. The information yielded a percent error of 17.984% which can be explained by a possible inaccurate reading of the thermometer to the tenth place