Which coffee cup will keep coffee hotter

for longer?
SRP Scientific Report

By Sara Adel
Aim
To find out which type of coffee cup keeps the coffee hotter for longer.

Background research
According to multiple sources, polystyrene cups are good insulators of heat, as its structure is composed
of hundreds of tiny air bubbles. Given air is a poor conductor of heat, this keeps alot of the heat inside the
cup rather than getting emitted outwards.

Cups like double layered glass cups are also good insulators of heat because they comprise mainly of air
and glass. As both are poor conductors of heat, this should result in a higher amount of heat being
retained within the cup. Similar to double layered glass cups, a metal thermos should also be a very good
insulator of heat as they again are double walled and vacuum insulated, meaning the air in between the
two layers of metal is removed, limiting conduction as a mechanism of heat transfer. According to
ecowayhouseware.com, a metal thermos can keep ice cold for over 24 hours and hot drinks hot for over
12 hours.
My research suggests that preventing heat loss using insulation to reduce conduction is the main
mechanism, in particular the use of air, or the lack of it.

Hypothesis

If air is a good insulator of heat, then those coffee cups that reduce conduction will be the most effective,
and the polystyrene cup will keep the coffee hotter for longer than the other coffee cups.

Risk Assessment
Risk Prevention Management

Scalding yourself by spilling hot
water on skin.
Be extremely careful with the If your skin gets scalded, run cold
boiling water and minimise water over the skin to numb it and
contact and handling with the apply some burn cream to the area.
kettle and cups while the coffee DO NOT continue to handle the hot
is still in it. In the case of the water.
cups tipping over, make sure the
cups are in a safe area away
from the edges of the counter to
avoid knocking them over.
Ensure there is sufficient space
between the cups to prevent
accidental knocking.
 Breaking class and potentially
cutting yourself
Be careful when handling
delicate objects and place them
all in the middle of the counter
away from the edges to avoid
accidently knocking them off.
Ensure there is sufficient space
between the cups to prevent
accidental knocking.
If you break some glass, DO NOT
touch the glass with your bare
hands, preferably wear gloves and
use a dustpan and brush to pick up
the pieces carefully and dispose of
them. DO NOT walk barefoot in the
area where you had broken it as
there may still be small pieces of
glass on the floor.

Variables
The dependent variable is the temperature of the coffee in each type of cup every 4 minutes for 16
minutes.
The independent variable is the type of cup in each trail.
The controlled variables include the starting temperature of the water, the amount of instant coffee in each
cup and the amount of water in each cup.

Materials
- Water
- Kettle
- Instant coffee sachets
- 3 Polystyrene cups
- 3 Plastic cups
- Double layer glass cup
- Ceramic mug
- Metal thermos
- Thermometer (I used a Sovercate infrared thermometer)
- Pen
- Measuring jug
- Timer to ensure accuracy of time
- Laptop for recording results
- Ceramic mug without coffee as a control

Method
1. Ready each cup with a tablespoon of instant coffee (or one sachet) each
 2. Boil the water, and using the measuring jug, carefully but quickly measure ¾ cups and pour that
amount into each cup. Make sure the measurements are the same for each cup. Stir in the instant
coffee
3. Measure the temperature of each cup and record it
4. Every 4 minutes measure the temperature of each cup of coffee and record it in a table
5. After 16 minutes stop recording, clean up and put the coffee to the side
6. Carry out the experiment 3 times and record each time. Before each trial, make sure all the cups
have cooled back to room temperature before continuing. To find out your results, find the
average of the results from the three trials.

FINAL RESULTS

Boiling point Pouring 4 8 12 16

Temperature min min min min

Polystyrene cup 100 81.7 70.6 63.4 56.5 53.9

Plastic cup 100 79.9 67.3 60.7 54.3 50.7

Double layer glass cup 100 77.7 69.4 61.1 58.7 53

Ceramic mug 100 75.5 63.5 56.9 51.7 48.2

Metal thermos 100 75.1 71.4 63.1 58.7 57.1

Control mug 100 73.7 63.6 57.2 48.6 46.8

Discussion
The results in this experiment show that at the end, the metal thermos won the race. Out of all the other
types of coffee cups, the metal thermos kept the coffee the hottest for the longest amount of time on
average.
All of the cups had a drastic decrease in temperature once they had all been poured, due to the action of
pouring the boiling water itself, but from there, the metal thermos and the polystyrene cup kept the coffee
hottest from the 4–8-minute measurement. At the 12-minute mark, the double-layered glass cup was able
to retain the same amount of heat as the metal thermos, with the polystyrene cup close behind and
eventually beating it again by 0.9 °C. By the end of the 16 minutes, the metal thermos had retained most
of the heat, the polystyrene cup following and the double-layer glass cup only 0.9°C behind. Surprisingly,
the cup that retained the least amount of heat was the ceramic mug. The most likely cause is this could be
that the mug had the largest mass, and therefore the heat in the coffee spread out more into the mug. It is
unlikely the cause was due to the timing of the pour as the ceramic mug was in the middle of the order

Other factors i noted during the experiment that could have influenced the way some of the cups retained
heat and could be further controlled and/or taken into consideration in a potential second experiment are:
● The temperature of the surface the experiment was conducted on,
● The temperature of the cups before pouring the water into it and
● The surface area at the top of the cup where the coffee was exposed to the air

Another thing that I observed is that the temperature of the outside cup may also be able to show how
much of a heat loss there was on each cup. I measured this and the metal thermos had the lowest amount
of heat loss according to this at approximately 27 degrees throughout the measurement period, as opposed
to the other mugs which increased in temperature during the experiment.

During the experiment, it was hard to pour the water into each cup in close enough time to keep the
results accurate on one timer. Next time, to keep the starting temperature of each cup the same, it would
be better to boil the water fresh each time and keep each cup on a separate timer to make sure the amount
of time between measuring is the same for all of the cups.

The thermometer that I used in this experiment was a Sovercate infrared thermometer, which uses a lens
to focus infrared light coming from the object, or in this case the coffee, onto the detector which converts
the radiation to heat and measures it. When I would measure the temperature of the coffee, the steam
coming off of it would get in the way of the detector, so the thermometer would measure the temperature
of the steam as well as it would move, which resulted in the reading on the thermometer to fluctuate.
Even though the accuracy of these types of thermometers is just as good as normal thermometers, next
time, using a thermometer which can be placed directly in the coffee would be a better idea to get a more
accurate result.
In this experiment I also used a control test, which was a ceramic mug without the coffee in it, to see if
the results would differ from those ones with the coffee. Considering the results, the control showed that
the coffee in the water made no difference in the results, meaning the experiment could be done the same
way even with plain water. This is evident because the starting temperature and ending temperature were
similar for both ceramic mug tests, showing that the coffee makes no difference.
The experiment was fair, as all the variables were the same other than the independent variables in each
test.

Conclusion
The coffee cup that retained the most heat in this experiment was the metal thermos mug. The hypothesis,
which was that the polystyrene cup would retain the most heat, was not supported by the results from the
experiment.
Picture