# Tag Info

20

Yes it would, by a few percent. It may or may not be a goal worth pursuing, but there is more to it. Different reactions would be slowed down to a different extent. Tiny as they are, these discrepancies suffice to disrupt the delicate biochemical machinery of the living cell. No life form more advanced than bacteria is OK with that. Deuterated water in high ...

18

A process is thermodynamically reversible if it is essentially at equilibrium. Specifically, the system and its surroundings stay infinitesimally close to equilibrium with each other throughout a reversible process. Small changes in intensive variables of the system are perfectly balanced by changes in those variables in the surroundings. For example, $T_{\... 18 Thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy always increases in an isolated system. This is taken as a fundamental postulate---we simply accept this statement as a fact regarding how the world works, and our justification is that no experiment has ever shown the second law incorrect. In the framework of macroscopic thermodynamics, ... 17 No. The reason why a gas particle in a large volume has a large entropy is not because it has a lot of space to move around per se. A better explanation is that for a given energy, there are many accessible translational states (these states can be derived from the particle in a box model). If we assume that all of these translational states are equally ... 14 While it may seem that randomness always increases when a crystal is dissolved into a liquid phase, it does not have to be that way. Concerning sugar, the molecule has a large number of hydroxyl groups and is generally rather large when compared with the water molecule around it — much larger than your average sodium or chloride ions. Every hydroxyl will ... 14 It is something of a historical accident that entropy has units of J/K. It came out of the fact that the connection between heat, temperature, and energy was not obvious to early scientists, and so they effectively picked different units for measuring temperature and for measuring energy. In the more modern statistical interpretation of entropy, the ... 13 It appears you're looking for an ELI5-style answer, not an elaborate definition. Entropy just happens – as long as the universe isn't frozen solid, things will always be moving around, and that movement tends to introduce randomness more than it tends to introduce order. Consider a deck of cards. Shuffle it. Is it perfectly sorted? No. Why? There are 10^67 ... 12 The most common way of measuring$\Delta S^\circ$for a chemical reaction is probably by making a van't Hoff plot. You measure the equilibrium constant$K$at different temperatures and plot$\ln K$vs$T^{-1}$. The$y$-intercept =$R\Delta S^\circ$and the slope =$-R\Delta H^\circ$. Another option is to measure$\Delta H^\circ$by calorimetry and measure ... 11 The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of the universe always increases. $$\mathrm{d}S > 0$$ In the case of adsorption the entropy of the system; the gas being adsorbed; decreases but the entropy of the surroundings;the rest of the gas and the surface (and everything else in the universe); increases and this outweighs the decrease in ... 11 Without significant mixing, diffusion takes a long time to mix gases. Our understanding of entropy tells us that we will indeed finish with mixed layers, but that doesn't give us a time frame for that mixing, only an outcome. Given a slow but steady production of a dense gas, layers absolutely will form due to density differences. There are plenty of ... 11 Yes, the kinetic isotope effect is the main reason due to the differential lowering of the zero point energy in reactants and transition state, which has the effect of increasing, slightly, the activation energy. However, this effect is small, a few percent in a single reaction. The reason that deuteration has an effect overall is due to the fact that ... 11 The units of of energy over temperature (e.g. J/K) used for entropy in the thermodynamic definition follow from a historical association with heat transfer under temperature gradients, in other words, the definitions of temperature and entropy are intertwined, with entropy being the more fundamental property. Entropy can be thought of as a potential and ... 11 Incorrect assumptions [OP] we see that entropy can be transferred between a system and its surroundings, with$\Delta S_\mathrm{system}=-\Delta S_\mathrm{surroundings}$This equation is usually not correct, except when you have a reversible process (an ideal situation where something happens even though everything is at equilibrium). For an equilibrium, ... 10 There is a lot of uncertainty regarding the far future of our Universe, but it seems that chemistry as we know it will be gone long before the end. Both free and bound protons (and neutrons) are expected predicted to decay through at least one of several mechanisms, with a half-life somewhere between the range of$10^{35}$-$10^{200}$yr (far shorter than the ... 10 For example, suppose you have a solid block of TNT. It explodes and releases much energy.$\Delta H$is negative. Gaseous products like nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water vapor are formed. The system has become more disordered, so entropy has increased. 10 The reason behind this is the hydrophobic effect. Everyone has seen it if they pour a spoonful of vegetable oil into a pot of water, e.g. to cook pasta. As long as nothing is disturbing the vegetable oil, it will collect itself together in one big bubble rather than form many small bubbles. Polar solvents will always be arranged in a way that positively ... 10 Indeed, it is clear that these values are not... Wait! What "these values"? You are putting two entirely different things in the same basket. (If your textbook does so, then it does a poor job.) It is much like treating dogs and cupboards similarly, on the basis of both having four legs. Then, however, many generalizations will fail quite miserably. You ... 10 The issue here is in your definition of entropy. According to your definition: $$\mathrm dS = \frac{\text{đ}q}{T}.\tag{1}$$ However, there is a small difference. As you may know, the entropy of a system is a state function and so it only depends on the initial and final states. Therefore, if the entropy of the system were to be calculated for a specific path ... 10 There are two factors to consider. Certainly, the dominant factor is that the degrees of freedom available for the molecule to disperse energy into increases as the carbon chain extends. Thinking along these lines, one would expect a monotonic increase of entropy with carbon chain length. However, we must also consider phase. As the carbon chain increases in ... 9 Briefly, spontaneous processes tend to proceed from states of low probability to states of higher probability. The higher-probability states tend to be those that can be realized in many different ways. Entropy is a measure of the number of different ways a state with a particular energy can be realized. Specifically, $$S=k\ln W$$ where$k$is Boltzmann's ... 9 NIST webbook does have a lot of data, though they are not in any kind of an API form as far as I know. http://webbook.nist.gov/chemistry/ 9 "One mole of ideal gas initially at a pressure of 1 atmosphere and T = 298 K, is expanded into a volume 50% larger adiabatically." The question doesn't have sufficient information for a solution, because we don't know if the adiabatic expansion is reversible or irreversible. If reversible: If the expansion is done reversibly, then we know entropy ... 9 "Reversible" is not binary. Both the forward and backward reactions always occur and the equilibrium system never has zero reactants or zero products. Thus, irreversible reactions are called this not because they cannot be reversed - they absolutely can - but because reversal is impractical. The equilibrium constant may be so skewed toward product that ... 9 All right, someone bearing the standard of thermodynamics will give you the equations shortly... From a layman to another, here goes my attempt at a simpler explanation. Entropy may be seen as the "disorderlyness" in some settings, but that is not a very useful way of seeing it. The metaphor is often used, but creates the wrong conclusions when looking ... 9 I consider watching any video a waste of time, so I'll be judging from your words alone. (Anyway, your question is essentially self-consistent, which is good.) Yes, entropy is a measure of disorder (sort of). No,$dS={\delta Q\over T}$only for reversible processes. And no, entropy is not the Q-T ratio for two reasons. First, because the above formula deals ... 9 Do not think of entropy as 'disorder' as this is misleading, better is that it is a 'measure of disorder' but this is equally vague. It is better to think of entropy as the number of ways that 'particles' or quanta (say vibrational or rotational quanta in a molecule) can be placed among the various energy levels available. Thus at zero energy all the ... 8 Your definition of entropy is incorrect. The significance of the Clausius inequality is that it shows that the definition of entropy, i.e.$\mathrm{\delta S=\cfrac{\delta q_{rev}}{T}}$(note that entropy change is defined for a reversible process) is consistent with observed reality: the entropy of an isolated system does not decrease spontaneously. We ... 8 You can't measure entropy directly, any more than you can measure interatomic distances. You measure other quantities -- for instance often you can measure energy gain/loss and temperature, and then you integrate$dS=dE/T\$. How to explain it? One of the best expositions I know is The Second Law by Henry A. Bent. It is full of insightful examples, lays ...

8

NIST is the best place to turn for lots of data. However, more easily parsed, smaller datasets are available in a couple of other locations. The CHNOSz package in R has thermochemical data for a variety of species, mostly inorganic. Their database is referenced back to the chemical literature. See an answer I gave to an old question for an example of how ...

8

They're called "reversible" because the processes can run backwards without additional input of energy. There aren't really any truly reversible processes in the universe, though (some come very close, but the construct of "reversible" is an ideal, not a reality). Entropy of a system can increase just fine during a reversible process: expanding a gas "slowly ...

Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible