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The specific heat capacity of a substance, usually denoted by or , is the heat capacity of a sample of the substance, divided by the mass of the sample: [10] = =, where represents the amount of heat needed to uniformly raise the temperature of the sample by a small increment .
The SI unit of heat capacity is joule per kelvin (J/K). Heat capacity is an extensive property. The corresponding intensive property is the specific heat capacity, found by dividing the heat capacity of an object by its mass. Dividing the heat capacity by the amount of substance in moles yields its molar heat capacity.
For example, if 250 J of heat energy is added to a copper gear with a thermal mass of 38.46 J/°C, its temperature will rise by 6.50 °C. If the body consists of a homogeneous material with sufficiently known physical properties, the thermal mass is simply the mass of material present times the specific heat capacity of that material.
In thermal physics and thermodynamics, the heat capacity ratio, also known as the adiabatic index, the ratio of specific heats, or Laplace's coefficient, is the ratio of the heat capacity at constant pressure (C P) to heat capacity at constant volume (C V).
Table of specific heat capacities at 25 °C (298 K) unless otherwise noted. [citation needed] Notable minima and maxima are shown in maroon. Substance Phase Isobaric mass heat capacity c P J⋅g −1 ⋅K −1 Molar heat capacity, C P,m and C V,m J⋅mol −1 ⋅K −1 Isobaric volumetric heat capacity C P,v J⋅cm −3 ⋅K −1 Isochoric ...
The corresponding expression for the ratio of specific heat capacities remains the same since the thermodynamic system size-dependent quantities, whether on a per mass or per mole basis, cancel out in the ratio because specific heat capacities are intensive properties. Thus:
Since the molar heat capacity of a substance is the specific heat c times the molar mass of the substance M/N its numerical value is generally smaller than that of the specific heat. Paraffin wax, for example, has a specific heat of about 2500 J⋅K −1 ⋅kg −1 but a molar heat capacity of about 600 J⋅K −1 ⋅mol −1.
These two factors (constancy of atomic volume and constancy of mole-specific heat capacity) result in a good correlation between the volume of any given solid chemical element and its total heat capacity. Another way of stating this, is that the volume-specific heat capacity (volumetric heat capacity) of solid elements is roughly a constant.