Specific heat is the amount of thermal energy required to increase/ decrease the temperature of a unit mass of a substance by 1K
This definition makes sense to me and is straightforward, however the sources I'm referring to say that specific heat is also a measure of a substance's storage ability. The term specific heat is often used in conjunction with heat storage. I'm not able to comprehend how is specific heat related to heat storage.
Edit: The answers have somewhat made sense to me that if we have two materials A and B at the same temperature initially having same mass then if A has a higher specific heat than B, then more energy will need to be given to A than B to result in same rise in temperature, so A has stored more energy in that temperature rise. This storage thing makes perfect sense to me when the body is just gaining energy but doesn't make sense when its gaining and losing at the same time (like from one end its gaining energy and losing from the other).
I'll try to explain my confusion with an example –
Consider again the materials A and B (A has a higher specific heat than B). I make two blocks, completely identical, out of these materials A and B, and initially at the same temperature. Let us say lateral surfaces are insulated so that the heat transfer is 1D. I transfer 10kJ of energy to both the blocks from one side, since block A has a higher specific heat than B, will it store more energy than B? As in, block A stores 8kJ and leaves 2kJ whereas block B stores 2kJ and leaves 8KJ (arbitrarily assumed values)
If yes, how we can conclude that? We have stated that material A stores more energy than B, for same temperature rise, when only heat transfer is taking place to the body, how can I apply that concept to a case where heat transfer is taking place to and from the body simultaneously?
Best Answer
If we heat an amount $m$ of a substance with specific heat capacity $c_p$, from an initial temperaure $T_1$ to a final temperature $T_2$, then the amount of heat energy $Q$ needed (in the absence of any losses of course) is:
$$Q=\int_{T_1}^{T_2}m c_p(T)\mathrm{d}T$$
Assuming $m$ to be constant and $c_p(T)$ invariant to $T$ the formula reduces to:
$$Q=mc_p(T_2-T_1)$$
We can say that an amount of heat energy $Q$ is stored in $m$ mass of that medium.
We can also say that the storage capacity $c_p$ is given by:
$$c_p=\frac{Q}{m(T_2-T_1)}$$