Question

Water has high specific heat capacity because,
A) It has hydrogen bonds between molecules.
B) It does not have hydrogen bonds between molecules.
C) It is liquid.
D) It does not have a high specific heat capacity.

Answer 1

Hint: Whenever a substance absorbs heat, it’s temperature will rise. This nature of the substance is called specific heat or specific heat capacity of the substance.

Complete step by step solution:
Water has a high specific heat capacity because it has hydrogen bonds between molecules. When heat is absorbed, hydrogen bonds are broken and water molecules can move randomly. When the temperature of water decreases, the hydrogen bonds are formed and release a finite amount of energy.
Water has the highest specific heat capacity compared to other substances. For this reason, water is used as a coolant in automobile radiators as well as a heater in the hot water bags. Because of its high specific heat capacity, the water warms up much more slowly than the land during summer, and consequently wind from the sea has a cooling effect.

$\therefore$ Water has high specific heat capacity because it has hydrogen bonds between molecules. Hence the correct option is (A).

Additional information:
The specific heat of a material is defined as the quantity of heat required by a unit mass of the substance to raise its temperature by one degree.
Suppose a small quantity of heat $\Delta Q$ is supplied to a solid of mass ‘$m$’. Let $\Delta T$be the increase in temperature. The specific heat capacity is given by, $c = \dfrac{{\Delta Q}}{{m\Delta T}}$. So, the heat $\Delta Q$ required to increase the temperature of a mass ‘$m$’ of a solid by an amount $\Delta T$ is given by, $\Delta Q = c(m\Delta T)$.
The quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of a body through one degree is called the heat capacity of that body.

Note:
Specific heat depends only on the nature of the substance. It does not depend on the mass of the substance.
Heat capacity depends on the mass of the body.