In TBR, it says that liquid has a higher heat capacity than solid or gas and this is because liquid can absorb the most heat (translational and vibrational) whereas solids absorb only vibrational and gases absorb only translational. However, wouldn't this mean that liquids have the LOWEST heat capacity since heat capacity refers to the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature by 1 degree celsius? If liquids can absorb heat the best, wouldn't it require less heat to raise its temperature? Can someone clear this up?
Why does liquid have highest heat capacity?
- Thread starter osprey099
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lol, I think you're making it harder than it actually is...
What they mean by "liquids can absorb the most heat" is that they can "spread" their gained heat into higher vibrational and translational molecular motion. So while solids send all their gained heat into vibrational KE and gas into translational KE, liquids can spread it semi equally to both (less to both)
^that might have been a bit confusing, but just think about it with real life things, if you light a fire and put a piece of metal over it, the metal will pretty much get hot instantly (you burn yourself because you're finger is solid, it has a low heat capacity as well and so 1 second on the hot metal and that's enough heat to mess things up) So just with a little amount of heat, you were able to raise the temp on this metal to a high level. If you wave your hands over the fire, it's really hot cause air above it absorbs the heat quickly and makes the air warm due to the translational KE molecules gain.
So what about water? When you put water in a pan over fire, the pan gets super hot super quick...cause it's solid/metal (molecules vibrating like crazy), the liquid however stays relatively normal temp for a while (you can touch it without burning yourself for 3-5 mins).
So instead of absorbing all the heat from the fire and only vibrating the liquid molecules or only increasing their translational KE, the liquid molecules do both, so the molecules vibrate more and increase their translational KE. Thus giving liquids a higher heat capacity.
^that might have sucked as an explanation, so others feel free to fix anything I might have gotten wrong.
