Question

A chemist mixes 75.0 g of an unknown substance at 96.5°C with 1,150 g of water at 25.0°C. If the final
temperature of the system is 37.1°C, what is the specific heat capacity of the substance? Use 4.184 J / g °C for
the specific heat capacity of water.

Answer 1

Hi, so a good thing is to remember is Heat Lost = Heat gained so when your calculating heat loss or gain you do mass*(spec heat cap)*(change in T), so in this problem, we don't know the spec heat cap, so we'll call it x.


Now in this problem we have \[75*x*(96.5-37.1) = 1150*4.184*(37.1-25) \]
use algebra to get x