Heat capacity converter
Convert how much energy it takes to warm a whole object by one degree.
That's 4× as much heat capacity as a cup of coffee, while a full kettle is 1.7× more. Warming it by 10 °C takes about 0.01162 kWh.
What it means
How much heat does it hold?
Examples are water-filled unless stated: water takes 4,184 J to warm a kilogram by one degree. A person is taken as 70 kg.
Every unit
Your heat capacity in every unit
Learn
Three things worth knowing
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A liter of water is 4.2 kJ/K
So warming a 150-liter bath by 30 °C takes about 19 MJ, or 5.2 kWh. Heat capacity × temperature rise = energy.
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Black’s heat and temperature
Joseph Black realized in the 1760s that heat and temperature are different things: the same heat warms a little water a lot, or a lot of water a little. Heat capacity is the number that links them.
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Per kelvin and per °C are the same
A kelvin and a degree Celsius are the same size of step, so J/K and J/°C are identical. Only per °F is smaller, by a factor of 1.8.
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Background
About heat capacity
Heat capacity is the energy needed to warm a whole object by one degree. A mug of tea has about 1 kJ/K, a bath about 600 kJ/K, which is why the bath stays warm so much longer.
Per kilogram the same quantity is specific heat. Entropy is measured in the same J/K, but it is a different idea: how spread out the energy is.