Calorimeter

[Brandon Yu]

Do we need to know how a calorimeter works for this course? If so, why?

[Hayley Vu]

It would probably be a good idea to understand calorimeters to the level that we learned in lecture. That is, the two main types of calorimeters, their components, and the basics of how measurements are taken. I think it's good to know how they work just to understand the instruments that take the measurements that we use in our calculations. I also think there are a few calculation problems that mention calorimeters when giving us certain values. It's possible that we might need to use a calorimeter in future labs too--who knows. Regardless, we spent a pretty good chunk of lecture learning about calorimeters, so I would definitely have some understanding of how they work--based on the lecture at least.

[Anna Hilger 3H]

Yeah, I think you should know how one works because he mentions it a lot in lecture, so it may show up on an exam.

[Sujin Lim 1H]

To add on, there were several textbook problems (assigned from the syllabus) that instructed us to find the heat capacity of the calorimeter, given the q value for a known reaction and the temperature change of the calorimeter. So at the least, I think it is important to know how the calorimeter works in context with a reaction in a system: the heat lost by the reaction is the heat gained by the calorimeter, and similarly, the heat gained by the reaction is the same value of the heat lost by the calorimeter. Therefore you would use the relationship: q of reaction = -Ccal * (deltaT) where Ccal is the heat capacity of the calorimeter, and deltaT is the change in temperature of the calorimeter.