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Ideas about heat

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What is temperature?
Temperature is a measure of how hot or cold an object is.
It is determined by the average kinetic energy of the particles
in the object.
Temperature is measured in degrees Celsius (°C).

 The freezing point of pure water is

defined as 0 °C (at sea level).
 The boiling point of pure water is
defined as 100 °C (at sea level).

Temperature can be measured by a variety

of different thermometers. These include
liquid in glass, digital, thermocouple and
bimetallic strip thermometers.

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What is heat?
Heat is the energy
transfer that takes
place between
objects of different
temperatures.
Heat is measured
in joules (J).
How many joules
are there in a
kilojoule (kJ)?
Heat transfer only occurs when there is a temperature
difference between substances. Heat always moves from an
area of higher temperature to an area of lower temperature.

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Types of heat transfer
Heat transfer can take
place in three different
ways:
 conduction, which
mainly occurs in
solids
 convection, which
only occurs in
liquids and gases
 radiation, which
occurs through any
material or even
through a vacuum.

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The particle model
The differences between hot and cold objects – and
between solids, liquids and gases – can be explained by
the particle model.
 All substances consist of particles (atoms or molecules).
 The particles are tightly
packed in a solid or spaced
further apart in a liquid or gas.
 The particles are attracted to
each other; some strongly
and others weakly.
 The particles move around,
i.e. they have kinetic energy.
 The kinetic energy of particles increases with temperature.

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Designing a conduction experiment
Can you design an experiment to investigate how well
different materials conduct heat? Remember to make your
experiment a fair test to ensure you get reliable results.
The available apparatus includes:

wax blobs tripod

metal, glass and

ceramic rods
drawing pins

Bunsen burner
stopwatch
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Investigating conduction

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Conduction in metals and non-metals
If you touch a piece of wood and a piece of copper metal
that are both at room temperature (about 21 °C), which
material feels warmer?

The wood feels

warmer because it is
a poor conductor.

The wood cannot conduct heat away from your hand as

quickly as the copper, which is a good conductor.

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Conduction in non-metals

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Conduction in metals
Metals are good conductors
of heat because:

 metals contain many free

electrons

 the free electrons can

move between atoms at
high speed

 the free electrons carry

energy from high-energy
atoms to low-energy
atoms further away from
the heat source.

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Conduction in metals

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Conduction in liquids
Metals are good conductors of heat and almost all
non-metals are poor conductors of heat.
Are liquids good at conducting heat?
 Use some gauze to hold an ice cube
at the bottom of a tube of water.
 Carefully heat the water at
the top of the tube only
until this water is boiling.
 If the liquid is good at
conducting, the ice should
quickly melt – it doesn’t.
Liquids are poor conductors of heat (i.e. good insulators).

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Conduction in gases
Are gases good at conducting heat?

 Carefully hold a safety match

1 cm away from a Bunsen
burner flame. (Do not put the
match in the flame!)

 If a gas is a good conductor,

the air between the flame and
the match should conduct heat
and light the match – it doesn’t.

Gases are poor conductors of heat (i.e. good insulators).

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Conductor or insulator?

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Convection and density
The density of a substance depends on how far apart its
particles are.
If water, oil and air are mixed
together, they will settle out in
order of density. Which one
will rise to the top?
The air is least dense and
rises to the top. The water is
the most dense and sinks to
the bottom.
This is important in explaining
how heat is transferred by
convection.

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Convection currents in a liquid
The movement of hotter
areas in a liquid can be
seen using potassium
permanganate as a dye.

This cycle is called a

convection current.

Can you use the concept

of density to explain how
the convection current
moves?

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How does convection in a liquid occur?

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Explaining convection

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Convection currents in a coal mine
When shaft mining was first used to mine coal, convection
currents caused by an underground fire were used to
ventilate the shafts.

Why do you think miners don’t use this method anymore?

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What is radiation?
We know that conduction mainly takes place in solids, and
convection takes place in liquids and gases.
How does the Earth receive heat energy from the sun
through the empty vacuum of space?

There is a third kind of heat transfer, which is called radiation,

or ‘infra-red radiation’.

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Absorbing radiation

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Seeing infrared radiation
The police and fire service use
infra-red cameras to find people
in the dark.

Infra-red has no colour, but a

computer can put a false colour on
the camera image so we can ‘see’
the object.

The colours are put on a scale

which corresponds to temperature.
White, yellow and red usually
represent the warmest areas;
green, blue and black usually
represent the coolest.

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Infrared goggles

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Changes of state activity

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Changes of state – heating curve
If a solid is heated, its
temperature rises until it
reaches its melting point.

At the melting point, the

temperature stops rising
while the solid melts,
because energy goes into
separating the particles.

Once the solid has

melted, the temperature
rises again until it reaches
the boiling point.

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Changes of state – heating curve
At the boiling point, the temperature again stays the same
as energy goes into further separating the particles.

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Changes of state – cooling curve

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What is evaporation?
Evaporation occurs when the particles in a liquid escape
to form a vapour.

Evaporation can take place at any temperature but it occurs

most rapidly at a liquid’s boiling point.

The particles that escape

take some energy from
the remaining particles,
so the temperature of the
liquid falls.

Evaporation is another
method of heat transfer.

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Evaporation experiment
Evaporation from different liquids can be investigated
using this experiment:

1. Take four equal masses of cotton wool

and soak each one in a different liquid –
ethanol, water, propanol and octanol.

2. Wrap each piece of cotton wool

around the bottom of a thermometer
and secure it with a rubber band.

3. Read the temperature every 30 seconds

and record the results in a table.

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Evaporation experiment – results

Temperature (°C) Temp.

Liquid change
0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
(°C)
min min min min min min min

ethanol

water

propanol

octanol

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 Evaporation experiment – analysis
Draw a bar chart of your results:
 with temperature change on the y axis,

 with the type of liquid on the x axis.

Plot a line graph of your results:

 with temperature on the y axis,
 with time on the x axis,
 and four lines plotted, one for each liquid.

Are any of the results anomalous?

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Using thermograms to investigate heat loss

Thermograms are useful for examining heat lost from a house,

as they show the temperature distribution over its surface.
The yellow and orange
roof and window areas are
the warmest – these are
the worst insulated parts
of the house.
The dark wall areas are
the coolest – these are
the best insulated parts
of the house.
A poorly insulated house loses more energy and so costs
more to heat. It also means that more pollution, particularly
carbon dioxide, is created in order to heat the house.

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Heat transfer – energy loss
Where is the most heat lost from a poorly insulated house?

roof 20%

windows 12%

walls 36%
doors 4%

floor 28%
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Examining insulation
What are the different types of home insulation?
insulating
Double glazing adds an extra layer
pane of glass to each window. side-view
of air of double
This means that there is a glazing
layer of air or a vacuum
between the two panes.
This helps to prevent heat
loss by conduction.
Loft insulation is plastic foam that contains trapped air and so
acts as an insulator to stop conduction of heat through the
roof tiles.
Draught excluders are hairy or spongy strips which are placed
under doors to prevent the movement of convection currents.

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Examining insulation
Curtains reduce heat loss by covering up gaps around
windows through which convection currents sometimes pass.
Cavity wall insulation involves
convection
placing a layer of plastic foam currents
insulation in between two layers of in the
outside walls. This prevents heat cavity
loss by both conduction and
convection currents.
Placing a sheet of shiny foil foam
insulation
behind radiators prevents heat prevents
radiation reaching the wall and convection
conducting outside. Instead, it is currents
reflected back into the room.

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Glossary

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Anagrams

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Multiple-choice quiz

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