Calorimetry
Instructor-Bruno Serfass
Perry Francois-Edwards
Matthew Constantino
Jose Martinez
Kadeem Palascios
Heat Conductivity
•Heat conductivity is how fast a
material can transfer heat from one
end to another
•This experiment measures heat
conductivity and how fast different
metals transfer heat
•We transferred heat from boiling
water (100 degrees C) through a
tube that runs underneath the poles
•The orange and yellow poles are
different metals
•We tested the temperature of the
poles with thermometers in our
hands
Heat Conductivity Results
•Red is copper
•Blue is aluminum
•Green is brass
•Yellow is lead
•Copper transferred heat from the
water the fastest
•Copper is a good conductor of
heat (energy)
•So if you want to conduct heat
fast you should use copper
Heat Capacity
•We tested different masses and specific
heats to see which ball had the most heat
capacity
•We multiplied the specific heat which is
the amount of heat that must be absorbed
or lost for that substance to change it’s
temperature by 1 degree by the mass in
grams in the balls
•Mass:
Specific Heat Heat Capacity
Zinc: 24 g
.092
2.208
Glass: 10 g
.16
1.6
Lead: 45 g
.031
1.395
Iron: 28 g
.105
2.94
Brass:40g
.092
2.76
•Heat Capacity= Mass x Specific Heat
Heat Capacity Results
• Two of the metal balls melted through the the
wax tablet.
• So the two balls that went through the tablet
had the greatest heat capacity. Those two
balls were the Iron and Brass.
• It also depended on the mass of the ball
because if it has a higher mass and a higher
specific heat, it’s heat capacity will be
increased as well.
Calorimeter Experiment (small scale)
• The objective of this experiment was to find the
energy that was transferred from a piece of brass
into the water in the calorimeter by recording the
change in temperature.
• We used this formula: q=mc(T2-T1)
• q=energy or heat
• m=mass
• c=specific heat
• T2-T1= change in temperature
Calorimeter Experiment (small scale)
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The piece of brass
The calorimeter
Thermometers
In the experiment we put some heated brass
in a small calorimeter to see the basics of how
a calorimeter works
Calorimeter Experiment
Dark Matter Calorimeter
• With the calorimeter here at UC Berkeley we
used it to record “events”, when a particle
interacts inside the germanium crystal.
• During the experiment we needed to refill the
liquid helium bath, which Perry volunteered
for, and had a bit of a technical difficulty
Calorimeter
Safety First
Measurements of Energy
• Measurements of energy are joules (j),
calories (cal), and electron volts (eV)
• 1 eV = 1.6x10^-19 j
• We convert electron volts into joules to make
it compatible with the units for specific heat
• Liquid helium is cold enough to be used to
cool down germanium crystal which allows
the temperature to be measured in more
reasonable measurements
Dark Matter
• A pulse is used to detect the particle based on
the energy that it transfers into the
germanium crystal (right)
• An event is a pulse,there
are 350,000 every 12 h
• pulse is 1-a few hundreds
keV
Dark Matter(cont.)
• The actual calorimeter that is currently being
used in the search for dark matter particles is
located 2000 ft. below sea level so the amount
of events from known particles that it records
is cut dramatically and hopefully raise the
chances of detecting dark matter