# Can anyone correct my mistake in the chem problem here: An alloy of mass 25.0 grams

was heated to 86.6 C and then placed in a calorimeter that contained 61.2 grams of water at 19.6 C
The temp of the water rose to 21.3 , determine the specific heat of the alloy in J/gC "

Technique:
use the formula
c= q/delta t

what do you plug in for q ?
you would have
c = q/1.7 ?
what do you get if you know what to plug in for q ?

ok well it seems like you could also average the two temperatures of the water and that could give you a value, would that value be your heat transferred or your delta T
and then the alloy at 88.6 degrees C would be another value to be plugged in, where could you plug it into as q ? ?

## Answers and Replies

danago
Gold Member

Think about using an energy balance here. Assuming that the system is adiabatic, the energy lost by the metal should be the same as the energy gained by the water. Furthermore, you know the mass of the water, its temperature change and its specific heat capacity (look it up, it is commonly available data), so you can easily calculate how much energy the water gained:

$$Q_{w} = m_wc_w\Delta T$$

If the metal loses this same amount of energy and you know much much its temperature changed by, what must its specific heat capacity be?