Spontaneity Chemical and physical processes have a natural tendency to occur in one direction under certain conditions. A spontaneous process occurs without the need for a continual input of energy from some external source, while a nonspontaneous process requires such.…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: One of the challenges of using the second law of thermodynamics to determine if a process is spontaneous is that it requires measurements of the entropy change…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: The Second Law of Thermodynamics In the quest to identify a property that may reliably predict the spontaneity of a process, a promising candidate has been identified:…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: In 1824, at the age of 28, Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (Figure 16.7) published the results of an extensive study regarding the efficiency of steam heat engines. A later…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Processes have a natural tendency to occur in one direction under a given set of conditions. Water will naturally flow downhill, but uphill flow requires outside intervention…
Figure 16.1 Geysers are a dramatic display of thermodynamic principles in nature. Water deep within the underground channels of the geyser is under high pressure and heated to high temperature by magma. When a pocket of water near the surface reaches boiling…
Precipitation and Dissolution The equilibrium constant for an equilibrium involving the precipitation or dissolution of a slightly soluble ionic solid is called the solubility product, Ksp, of the solid. For a heterogeneous equilibrium involving the slightly soluble solid MpXq and its ions…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: As discussed in preceding chapters on equilibrium, coupled equilibria involve two or more separate chemical reactions that share one or more reactants or products. This section of this chapter…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: In 1923, G. N. Lewis proposed a generalized definition of acid-base behavior in which acids and bases are identified by their ability to accept or to donate a pair…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Solubility equilibria are established when the dissolution and precipitation of a solute species occur at equal rates. These equilibria underlie many natural and technological processes, ranging from…