Assume you are performing the calibration step of Experiment 8 and you begin with 50 g of water at 20 oC and 50 g of water at 80 oC. After adding the two portions of water into your calorimeter setup and following the procedure outlined in the experiment, you determine the temperature of the mixed portions of water to be 45 oC. What is the heat capacity of the calorimeter?

Answer 1

heat lost by hot water is
q1 = mass x specific heat x (Tfinal-Tinitial).

heat absorbed by the cold water is
q2 = mass x specific heat x (Tfinal-Tinitial).

The difference of the two is the heat absorbed by the calorimeter and delta H/delta T = heat capacity of the calorimeter.