Specific Heat Capacity

If you heat a saucepan of water on a hob, it takes a noticeable amount of time to get hot. But if you put the same amount of energy into a similar mass of cooking oil, it heats up much faster. Why? The answer lies in a property called specific heat capacity — one of the most important quantities in thermal physics.

---

Definition and Equation

The specific heat capacity (c) of a substance is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1 kg of that substance by 1 K (or equivalently, by 1 °C).

The equation linking energy, mass, specific heat capacity, and temperature change is:

Q = mcΔθ

where:

• Q = energy transferred (in joules, J)
• m = mass of the substance (in kilograms, kg)
• c = specific heat capacity (in J kg⁻¹ K⁻¹)
• Δθ = change in temperature (in K or °C — the size of a kelvin is equal to the size of a degree Celsius, so ΔT in K equals Δθ in °C)

The units of specific heat capacity are J kg⁻¹ K⁻¹ (joules per kilogram per kelvin).

---

Specific Heat Capacity Values