Prediction of Heat Capacities of Solid Inorganic Salts from Group Contributions

A group contribution technique is proposed to predict the coefficients in the heat capacity correlation, Cp = a + bT + c/T2 + dT2, for solid inorganic salts. The results from this work are compared with experimental data from the literature. The technique is shown to give good predictions for both simple and complex solid inorganic salts. Literature heat capacities for a large number (664) of solid inorganic salts covering a broad range of cations (129), anions (17), and ligands (2) have been used in regressions to obtain group contributions for the parameters in the heat capacity temperature function. A mean error of 3.18% is found when predicted values are compared with literature values for heat capacity at 298 K.