Question

An iron piece get heated faster than water even though same amount of heat energy is applied in both.why?

Answer 1

Water has a higher specific heat capacity.

Explanation:

Specific heat capacity is a property of materials which gives how much energy must be added to a unit mass of a specific material to increase it's temperature by 1 degree Kelvin.

According to The engineering toolbox , water has a specific heat capacity of #4.187 kj times kg^-1 K^-1# , while iron has a specific heat capacity of `0.45 kJ times kg^-1 times K^-1`

This means that in order to raise the temperature by 1 degree Kelvin of 1 kg of water, 4187 joules must be transferred to the water.

For iron, only 450 joules need to be transferred to raise 1kg of Iron by 1 degree Kelvin.

Hence if we were to transfer 450 Joules to Both 1kg of Iron and 1kg of water, the Iron would heat up by 1 degree, but the water would only heat up by about `(1/10)` of a degree.