Question #cb75d

Melting is an isothermal process i.e. the temperature remains constant during the process no matter how much heat the system is provided.

Specific heat capacity is the amount of heat in joules required to raise 1 gram of a substance 1 Kelvin.

Since heat doesn't really affects the temperature no matter how much heat is provided the specific heat capacity is infinite.

The specific heat of ice is `2.108 (kJ)/(kgK)` and the specific heat of liquid water is `4.187 (kJ)/(kgK)`.

In this paragraph, assume the temperature is at the freezing/melting point. If all the `H_2O` is liquid water and you wanted to warm the water, `4.187 (kJ)/(kgK)` would be the specific heat to use. If all the `H_2O` is ice, and you wanted to cool the ice, `2.108 (kJ)/(kgK)` would be the specific heat to use.

Notice that for the specific heat of `H_2O`, the specific heat of the liquid phase is twice that of solid (ice). As a comparison: The specific heat of solid lead is `0.128 (kJ)/(kgK)` and the specific heat of molten lead is `0.14 (kJ)/(kgK)`. So the specific heat of lead is slightly greater in the molten phase.

I hope this helps,
Steve