Home Experiment for measuring the Latent heat of Ice.

This is a rather simple experiment that will give you some idea of how difficult it is to
measure thermal properties and experience in writing a lab report of the type that you will
need to describe the air conditioning experiment.
The report should follow the instructions given on the website for the lab report format.
However, with such a simple experiment and results, the report should be short and
simple, for example just the title page, executive summary, calculations, and appendix.
The experiment can be done at home or in the heat transfer lab.
Instructions for the Home Experiment
1) Bring several cups of water to a rolling boil. Keep the heat on so that boiling is continuous
2) While the water is coming to a boil, measure the weight of several ice cubes -- a kitchen scale
or diet scale is sufficiently accurate. If you don't have a scale, measure the volume of the ice
cubes and use the published density of ice to compute the weight. If you have to measure the
volume, think carefully about how to do this with what you have in the kitchen.
3) Crush the ice cubes and put the ice in a thick pyrex bowl (or any bowl that wont break). Be
sure to cool the bowl to ice temperature first and to insulate it with a towel before adding the
measured amount of ice..
4) Pour a measured amount of boiling water into the bowl and mix by stirring. Keep pouring until
all of the ice just melts. Be sure not to pour any extra water in. The final temperature should be as
close to 0C as possible. Record the amount of water used. Try and do this as quickly as possible
so that heat (energy) is not lost from the bowl to the surrounding air.
5) repeat the process several times, at least 3 times, then average the results
6) Find the specific heat of liquid water from your thermo text and compute the latent heat of the
ice. The heat given up by the boiling water is equal to the product of mass x temperature change x
specific heat. The heat necessary to melt the ice is equal to the product of the mass of ice x the
latent heat.
The initial energy of the system is C cp M C cp M E
ice ice w w initial
0 0 10 + = .
The final energy is
ice ice ice ice w w final
L M C cp M C cp M E + + = 0 0
M stands for mass, cp stands for specific heat, and nC refers to the temperature in degrees C.
Assuming that the temperature after mixing is 0C and that no heat has been lost, the final energy
= initial energy and you can compute the latent heat.
In reality, some of the energy from the hot water goes to heat up the bowl, but if the hot water just
melts the ice, then the temperature of the bowl should not have changed.

Instructions for doing the experiment in the Heat Transfer Lab
Experiments done in the lab can only be done by groups, not by individuals. The members of
the groups are listed on the web site.
You need to sign up for a specific time with the TA. A signup sheet will be posted on the website.
Experiments can only be done during regular class hours or hours listed as available on the signup
sheet.
1) Before doing the experiment, estimate how much ice should be used. Use the properties in the
thermo text and assume that the ice + water cannot exceed 250ml.
1) Weigh the 250 ml beaker that will contain the ice.
2) Weigh the ice, then if cubes crush them.
3) Bring several cups of water to a rolling boil using a glass beaker and the hot plate
4) Follow directions 4-6 listed above for the home experiment. You can measure the temperature
of the final mixture of ice and water using the electronic thermocouple. In this case you
do not need to ensure that the final temperature be 0C. However, if it is much higher the
heat losses will affect the results.