Preliminary chemistry

Module 3 | Water

Focus 5: Water has a higher heat capacity than many other liquids

Lesson 1 | Heat capacity of water

• Explain what is meant by the specific heat capacity of a substance.

• Compare the specific heat capacity of water with a range of other solvents.

• Explain why water’s ability to absorb heat is important to aquatic organisms and to life on earth generally.

• Explain what is meant by thermal pollution and discuss the implications for life if a body of water is affected by thermal pollution.

Lesson 2 | Measuring energy changes

• Explain how water’s ability to absorb heat is used to measure energy changes in chemical reactions.

• Explain and use the equation:

  $$\Delta H=-mC\Delta T$$

• Describe dissolutions which release heat as exothermic and give examples.

• Describe dissolutions which absorb heat as endothermic and give examples.

Lesson 3 | Investigating calorimetry

• Choose resources and perform a first-hand investigation to measure the change in temperature when substances dissolve in water and calculate the molar heat of solution.

• Process and present information from secondary sources to assess the limitations of calorimetry experiments and design modifications to equipment used.

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