Heat Capacity, Specifically?

Heat Capacity is the capacity of a body to store heat. It is measured in energy units per temperature units, or J/°C. Time out professor.. Please explain. OK, but first let's define specific heat capacity (Cp). Specific heat capacity is defined by how much heat you have to add or remove from an object to change its temperature. Essentially heat capacity can be understood as how well an object can maintain its temperature compared to other objects. Let's look at specific heat capacities (J mol−1 K−1) for different materials.

• Aluminum 0.24
• Gasoline 2.22
• Copper 0.385
• Water 4.18

Materials with low specific heat capacities are excellent conductors because they can change temperature quickly. That is why you are using copper pots and I still have that trusty aluminum pot. Materials with high specific heat capacities are excellent insulators because they can't change temperatures quickly.

Whiz kids, let's put this in perspective: if we wanted to equally raise the temperature of the same mass of aluminum and the same mass of water, we would need 17.41 times more heat applied to the water. Ever heard of the liquid cooled engine? While some of the coolant contains antifreeze chemicals, most of its contents are water--a superb insulator. So even though that engine's light weight aluminum (easy to heat) block is heating up fast, it is kept cool because of the water (hard to heat) running through it.