Question

In order to better understand the benefits of recycling aluminum, you need to determine the specific heat of aluminum. To do this, you will need to design an experiment in which you can calculate the specific heat of aluminum by creating a thermal equilibrium system in which two different metals with different initial temperatures reach a final temperature that is the same for both.

Answer 1

for doing this, take a metal of known specific heat. This metal will be heated to a temperature let us say T1. Then this metal will be brough into contact with metal for which specific heat need to be determined. considering the system to be adiabatic so thst there is no heat loss to the surroundings,

let mA= mass of metal A, CpA= specific heat which need to be determined, T1= T1, Tb= equilibrium temperature,

mB= mass of metal B, CpB= specific heat of metal B, known, TI= Ti = initial temperature of metal, Tb= equilibirum temperature. Heat gained by metal B= mb*CpB*(Tb-Ti)= heat lost by metal S= mA*CpA*(T1-Tb)

from this CpA can be calculated