Latent heat of fusion for ice to water

 The specific latent heat of fusion is the number of Joules of energy needed to turn 1kg of ice into water at a constant temperature. We used an electric heater in a glass funnel of ice so that only the melted water is weighed.

 A problem was that the heater melted a tube around it and the rest of the ice had fused so that it would not fall into the hole created. So the heater was tending to heat the air. This will mean that more heat than expected will be needed to melt 1kg. Our value will be too high.

 The electrical method allows the heat energy input to be calculated by ItV. The data is set out below.

The true value for water is 3.34 x 10^5 J/kg so it's not too bad. As explained, the value is higher than it should be. Another reason for this value being too high is that we had to heat the ice from say -5 Celsius to 0 Celsius before it started to melt.