Seal the mouth spout on a coffee cup lid. Bore small holes in the lid to insert a thermometer on one side and a wooden stir stick on the other side. Add tap water to the coffee cup to fill exactly halfway and record the tap water's mass. Place the lid on the cup and close securely. Record the temperature of the tap water and remove the lid. Fill the rest of the cup with boiling water of equivalent mass to the tap water and replace the lid. Record the temperature change. Use the appropriate formula from your textbook to determine the specific heat capacity of a Styrofoam cup calorimeter.
Fill the foam cup halfway with water and record the temperature. Divide the remaining space in the cup by two to determine the equal amounts of ammonium nitrate and hydrochloric acid needed to fill the cup. Use these measurements to convert the amounts into moles. Add the nitrate and acid to the calorimeter and measure the accompanying temperature change. Calculate the enthalpy of solvation by dividing the heat of the reaction in the calorimeter by the amount of moles of ammonium nitrate and hydrochloric acid that were added to the tap water.
Gather liquid samples of five metal types. Conduct separate experiments to combine water with each type of metal in the calorimeter. Record the volume of each solution, initial temperature of each solution and the highest temperature achieved after the solutions are mixed. Convert the volume to grams and determine the change in temperature by subtracting the final and initial temperatures. Calculate the specific heat of the metal using the specific heat formula from your textbook. Compare to a specific heat chart, which should also be available in your textbook, to determine if your foam cup calorimeter results are accurate.
Use a wooden calorimeter so students can compare the efficiency of Styrofoam calorimeters to their professional counterparts. Provide samples of common metals such as aluminum or iron. Place the metals in a hot water bath until they reach equilibrium temperature. Fill the calorimeters halfway with water and record the temperature. Have students add metal samples to the Styrofoam cups while the teacher adds a sample to the wooden calorimeter. Record the temperature and calculate the specific heat of the metal. Compare student results with the teacher's results to determine accuracy. Repeat the experiment to measure latent heat of fusion by replacing the metal sample with ice cubes.