Question

State two differences between “Heat Capacity” and “Specific Heat Capacity”.

Answer 1

Hint Heat capacity is related to the mass of the entire substance or object, since it is not defined as a per unit measure of the object's mass. The specific heat capacity is unique for the substance itself and does not change with respect to the substance’s mass.

Complete Step by step solution
The heat capacity of a substance is defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of the given mass of the substance by ${1^ \circ }C$ or $1K$.
The specific heat capacity of a substance is defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature per unit mass of the substance by ${1^ \circ }C$ or $1K$.
This clearly differentiates the heat capacity being mass dependent and the specific heat capacity not being mass dependent.
If we increase the mass of the substance, the heat capacity will increase. This can also be summarized in a different way as follows. The heat capacity is the mass of the body times the specific heat capacity of the substance. Please notice that the mass is of the entire body present, but the specific heat capacity is defined as that of the substance present.
This means $Heat\,capacity = Specific\,heat\,capacity \times mass$.
The units can also be remembered as a difference. Generally, the increase in temperature as mentioned in the definition is from ${15^ \circ }C$ or ${25^ \circ }C$.

Note
The SI unit of heat capacity is $J{K^{ - 1}}$, whereas that of the specific heat capacity is $Jk{g^{ - 1}}{K^{ - 1}}$. This clearly demonstrates that the specific heat capacity of a substance does not vary with the mass of the substance but the heat capacity varies as the mass of the given substance varies.