Question

Which of the following has the largest value?
(A) Latent heat of ice
(B) Specific heat of the water
(C) Latent heat of steam
(D) Specific heat of copper

Answer 1

Hint: To answer this question we will start by understanding the terms given in the options. We will evaluate the difference between the latent heat of ice and steam and similarly the specific heat of water and copper. Then we will provide the largest value of the quantity among them.

Complete step by step solution:
The latent heat can be defined as the amount of heat required to convert a liquid into vapor, solid into a liquid, or vapor, without the change in their temperature.
Steam is a phase of water in the gas state, when a large amount of energy is provided to the water, its molecules start changing their arrangements but the temperature does not change. The molecules start absorbing heat from their environments and start converting into another state such as steam.
Ice is known as the solid phase of water when the temperature of the substance is lowered then it starts releasing energy into its environment and as a result, the molecules start shrinking and coming close to each other results in ice.
 Latent heat of ice is given as $80cal/{g^\circ }C$ and latent heat of steam is $540cal/{g^\circ }C$
Hence it can be concluded that the latent heat of ice is lower than the latent heat of steam.
Specific heat capacity is a ratio of the amount of heat that is required to raise the temperature $1\;kg$ by the temperature of $1\;K$. We know that excess heat is required to raise the temperature of the solid in comparison to the liquid.
Specific heat of water is about $1cal/{g^\circ }C$ and specific heat of copper is about $0.092cal/{g^\circ }C$.
Hence a specific heat of copper is much higher than the specific heat of the water. On comparing the above quantities it is found that the latent heat of steam has the largest value than other quantities.

Therefore the option (C) is the correct answer

Note: If we discuss specific heat of water which is defined as the ratio of the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of an equal mass of water by one degree and compare it with copper which is denser than water and is mainly found in solid-state therefore required more heat to get heated.