Specific Latent Heat
A specific latent heat (L) expresses the amount of energy in form of heat (Q) required to completely effect a phase change of a unit of mass (m), usually 1kg, of a substance as an intensive property:
Intensive properties are material characteristics and are not dependent on the size or extent of the sample. Commonly quoted and tabulated in the literature are the specific latent heat of fusion and the specific latent heat of vaporization for many substances.
From this definition, the latent heat for a given mass of a substance is calculated by
where:
- Q is the amount of energy released or absorbed during the change of phase of the substance (in kJ or in BTU),
- m is the mass of the substance (in kg or in lb), and
- L is the specific latent heat for a particular substance (kJ-kgm−1 or in BTU-lbm−1), either Lf for fusion, or Lv for vaporization.
Read more about this topic: Latent Heat
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