When a hot rubber stopper is submerged in water, the heat which is released by the stopper is absorbed by the water. Therefore, the amount of heat absorbed by the water is about equal to the amount of heat released by the stopper, assuming that this is the only heat flow that occurs. Then, why does the temperature of the stopper fall by about 10 °C, while the temperature of the water only rises by 3 or 4 °C? This difference illustrates an important concept called specific heat capacity.
What do we know?
Specific heat capacity (c) refers to the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 g of a substance by 1 K. Every substance has a unique specific heat capacity. Some substances have a high specific heat capacity and are capable of absorbing a large amount of heat without experiencing a substantial temperature change; some substances have a low specific heat capacity and experience a large temperature change when they absorb a relatively small amount of heat.
The rubber stopper and the water in the IR Imaging of Heat Flow Learning Tool. experience different temperature changes, even though they released or absorbed the same amount of heat, because rubber and water have different specific heat capacities.
Your Turn
The specific heat capacity of water plays a key role in Earth’s climate. Based on the temperature changes experienced by the rubber stopper and the water in the IR Imaging of IR Imaging of Heat Flow Learning Tool. , and disregarding the amounts of each, which substance do you think has the larger specific heat capacity?
Substances with a large specific heat capacity are capable of absorbing relatively large amounts of heat while experiencing relatively small temperature changes. Because the water experienced the smaller temperature change with the same amount of energy transfer, we can conclude that water has a larger specific heat capacity than rubber.