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Sensible and latent heat

Sensible heat changes a substance's temperature without changing its phase, while latent heat goes into the phase change itself while the temperature stays constant. When heating through a phase change, split the calculation into separate steps and add them together.

Symbols

Example

$0.5$ kg of ice is heated from $-5$ °C to $0$ °C ($c_{ice} = 2.1$): $Q_1 = 0.5\cdot 2.1\cdot 5 = 5.25$ kJ. Melting ($L = 334$): $Q_2 = 0.5\cdot 334 = 167$ kJ.

← Work at constant pressure · Enthalpy →

Part of Thermodynamics: Heat and entropy.