Millsaps College Lab Manual

METHOD:

The following procedure was taken from the 2017 Millsaps College lab manual.1 The experiment was split into two parts, part A and part B. Part A was to find the heat capacity while part B determined the specific heat of an unknown metal. This was the final goal of the lab. To start, a temperature probe had to be connected to a LabQuest2 data collection device. 100.0 mL of deionized had to be added into a Styrofoam cup. The temperature probe was kept in the calorimeter until the temperature had been stabilized and was calibrated. A beaker was placed on a hot plate with dial turned between three and four. Another 100.00 ml of deionized water was added while the beaker is heating up. Using the temperature probe, the beaker was measured

The temperature probe was then quickly cooled to room temperature. When this was achieved, the hot water was immediately transferred into the calorimeter. This method of keeping the temperature probe cooled before measuring a new temperature was repeated throughout the entire experiment. Temperature data was collected for 180 s while swirling the temperature inside the calorimeter. The calorimeter still contained the warm water. After the water temperature began to stabilize, the highest constant temperature was recorded. This data was used to calculate the calorimeter constant. This enter procedure was repeated to calculate another calorimeter constant in order to find the average of both answers. After that value was calculated, a 600 mL beaker was filled with 300 mL of water and heated till it started boiling. An unknown metal located on the instructor's bench was obtained and the mass was calculated. For two minutes, the metal was suspended in the boiling water. During the two minutes, a Styrofoam cup was filled with 100 mL of room temperature water. The initial temperature of the metal was equal to the temperature of the boiling water. In order to probably calculate the temperature of the metal, the steps were repeated and another temperature was

The specific heat of three elements were tested zinc, copper, and lead. The experiments ran from Monday to Thursday and allowed a precise amount of heat to be determined. The experiment had multiple errors which were caused by random errors not systematically errors. In order to combat this, certain items were kept same. This was called a control. This experiment had water and the amount as a control as well as the size of the metal were also kept same. the This was why the experiment was repeated multiple times on different days. A standard deviation was found for each element when calorimeter constant and specific heat were calculated. Tuesday was the day with the least amount of deviation which meant it was the day with the most precise when calorimeter constants were compared (Table 1). The weekly average was not precise due to the values on Tuesday and Thursday being so much higher proportionally compared to Monday and Wednesday (Graph 1 ). Specific heat was also a value which varied based on the accuracy of the execution of the experiment. Different days lead to different amounts of precision and this was due to the random errors. Random errors were mistakes caused by the experimenter. Tuesday had the lowest standard deviation for all the metals (Table 1). Overall, copper had the best precision and this again was known by examining the standard deviation. A t-test