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Component (thermodynamics)
In thermodynamics, a component is one of a collection of chemically independent constituents of a system. The number of components represents the minimum number of independent chemical species necessary to define the composition of all phases of the system. Calculating the number of components in a system is necessary when applying Gibbs' phase rule in determination of the number of degrees of freedom of a system. The number of components is equal to the number of distinct chemical species (constituents), minus the number of chemical reactions between them, minus the number of any constraints (like charge neutrality or balance of molar quantities). Calculation Suppose that a chemical system has elements and chemical species (elements or compounds). The latter are combinations of the former, and each species can be represented as a sum of elements: : A_i = \sum_j a_E_j, where are the integers denoting number of atoms of element in molecule . Each species is determined by a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of thermodynamics which convey a quantitative description using measurable macroscopic physical quantities, but may be explained in terms of microscopic constituents by statistical mechanics. Thermodynamics applies to a wide variety of topics in science and engineering, especially physical chemistry, biochemistry, chemical engineering and mechanical engineering, but also in other complex fields such as meteorology. Historically, thermodynamics developed out of a desire to increase the efficiency of early steam engines, particularly through the work of French physicist Sadi Carnot (1824) who believed that engine efficiency was the key that could help France win the Napoleonic Wars. Scots-Irish physicist Lord Kelvin was the first to formula ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermodynamic System
A thermodynamic system is a body of matter and/or radiation, confined in space by walls, with defined permeabilities, which separate it from its surroundings. The surroundings may include other thermodynamic systems, or physical systems that are not thermodynamic systems. A wall of a thermodynamic system may be purely notional, when it is described as being 'permeable' to all matter, all radiation, and all forces. A state of a thermodynamic system can be fully described in several different ways, by several different sets of thermodynamic state variables. A widely used distinction is between ''isolated'', ''closed'', and ''open'' thermodynamic systems. An isolated thermodynamic system has walls that are non-conductive of heat and perfectly reflective of all radiation, that are rigid and immovable, and that are impermeable to all forms of matter and all forces. (Some writers use the word 'closed' when here the word 'isolated' is being used.) A closed thermodynamic system is c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chemical Species
A chemical species is a chemical substance or ensemble composed of chemically identical molecular entities that can explore the same set of molecular energy levels on a characteristic or delineated time scale. These energy levels determine the way the chemical species will interact with others (engaging in chemical bonds, etc.). The species can be an atom, molecule, ion, or radical, and it has a specific chemical name and chemical formula. The term is also applied to a set of chemically identical atomic or molecular structural units in a solid array. In supramolecular chemistry, chemical species are those supramolecular structures whose interactions and associations are brought about via intermolecular bonding and debonding actions, and function to form the basis of this branch of chemistry. For instance: * The chemical species argon is an atomic species of formula Ar; * dioxygen and ozone Ozone (), or trioxygen, is an inorganic molecule with the chemical formula . It is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chemical Composition
A chemical composition specifies the identity, arrangement, and ratio of the elements making up a compound. Chemical formulas can be used to describe the relative amounts of elements present in a compound. For example, the chemical formula for water is H2O: this means that each molecule of water is constituted by 2 atoms of hydrogen (H) and 1 atom of oxygen (O). The chemical composition of water may be interpreted as a 2:1 ratio of hydrogen atoms to oxygen atoms. Different types of chemical formulas are used to convey composition information, such as an empirical or molecular formula. Nomenclature can be used to express not only the elements present in a compound but their arrangement within the molecules of the compound. In this way, compounds will have unique names which can describe their elemental composition. Composite mixture The chemical composition of a mixture can be defined as the distribution of the individual substances that constitute the mixture, calle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phase (matter)
In the physical sciences, a phase is a region of space (a thermodynamic system), throughout which all physical properties of a material are essentially uniform. Examples of physical properties include density, index of refraction, magnetization and chemical composition. A simple description is that a phase is a region of material that is chemically uniform, physically distinct, and (often) mechanically separable. In a system consisting of ice and water in a glass jar, the ice cubes are one phase, the water is a second phase, and the humid air is a third phase over the ice and water. The glass of the jar is another separate phase. (See ) The term ''phase'' is sometimes used as a synonym for state of matter, but there can be several immiscible phases of the same state of matter. Also, the term ''phase'' is sometimes used to refer to a set of equilibrium states demarcated in terms of state variables such as pressure and temperature by a phase boundary on a phase diagram. B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gibbs' Phase Rule
In thermodynamics, the phase rule is a general principle governing "pVT" systems, whose thermodynamic states are completely described by the variables pressure (), volume () and temperature (), in thermodynamic equilibrium. If is the number of degrees of freedom, is the number of components and is the number of phases, then :F = C - P + 2 It was derived by American physicist Josiah Willard Gibbs in his landmark paper titled ''On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances'', published in parts between 1875 and 1878. The rule assumes the components do not react with each other. The number of degrees of freedom is the number of independent intensive variables, i.e. the largest number of thermodynamic parameters such as temperature or pressure that can be varied simultaneously and arbitrarily without determining one another. An example of one-component system is a system involving one pure chemical, while two-component systems, such as mixtures of water and ethanol, have two chem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Degrees Of Freedom (physics And Chemistry)
In physics and chemistry, a degree of freedom is an independent physical parameter in the formal description of the state of a physical system. The set of all states of a system is known as the system's phase space, and the degrees of freedom of the system are the dimensions of the phase space. The location of a particle in three-dimensional space requires three position coordinates. Similarly, the direction and speed at which a particle moves can be described in terms of three velocity components, each in reference to the three dimensions of space. If the time evolution of the system is deterministic (where the state at one instant uniquely determines its past and future position and velocity as a function of time) such a system has six degrees of freedom. If the motion of the particle is constrained to a lower number of dimensions – for example, the particle must move along a wire or on a fixed surface – then the system has fewer than six degrees of freedom. On the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linear Independence
In the theory of vector spaces, a set of vectors is said to be if there is a nontrivial linear combination of the vectors that equals the zero vector. If no such linear combination exists, then the vectors are said to be . These concepts are central to the definition of dimension. A vector space can be of finite dimension or infinite dimension depending on the maximum number of linearly independent vectors. The definition of linear dependence and the ability to determine whether a subset of vectors in a vector space is linearly dependent are central to determining the dimension of a vector space. Definition A sequence of vectors \mathbf_1, \mathbf_2, \dots, \mathbf_k from a vector space is said to be ''linearly dependent'', if there exist scalars a_1, a_2, \dots, a_k, not all zero, such that :a_1\mathbf_1 + a_2\mathbf_2 + \cdots + a_k\mathbf_k = \mathbf, where \mathbf denotes the zero vector. This implies that at least one of the scalars is nonzero, say a_1\ne 0, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rank (linear Algebra)
In linear algebra, the rank of a matrix is the dimension of the vector space generated (or spanned) by its columns. p. 48, § 1.16 This corresponds to the maximal number of linearly independent columns of . This, in turn, is identical to the dimension of the vector space spanned by its rows. Rank is thus a measure of the " nondegenerateness" of the system of linear equations and linear transformation encoded by . There are multiple equivalent definitions of rank. A matrix's rank is one of its most fundamental characteristics. The rank is commonly denoted by or ; sometimes the parentheses are not written, as in .Alternative notation includes \rho (\Phi) from and . Main definitions In this section, we give some definitions of the rank of a matrix. Many definitions are possible; see Alternative definitions for several of these. The column rank of is the dimension of the column space of , while the row rank of is the dimension of the row space of . A fundamental result ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graphite
Graphite () is a crystalline form of the element carbon. It consists of stacked layers of graphene. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Synthetic and natural graphite are consumed on large scale (300 kton/year, in 1989) for uses in pencils, lubricants, and electrodes. Under high pressures and temperatures it converts to diamond. It is a weak conductor of heat and electricity. Types and varieties Natural graphite The principal types of natural graphite, each occurring in different types of ore deposits, are * Crystalline small flakes of graphite (or flake graphite) occurs as isolated, flat, plate-like particles with hexagonal edges if unbroken. When broken the edges can be irregular or angular; * Amorphous graphite: very fine flake graphite is sometimes called amorphous; * Lump graphite (or vein graphite) occurs in fissure veins or fractures and appears as massive platy intergrowths of fibrous or acicular cryst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polymer
A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic and natural polymers play essential and ubiquitous roles in everyday life. Polymers range from familiar synthetic plastics such as polystyrene to natural biopolymers such as DNA and proteins that are fundamental to biological structure and function. Polymers, both natural and synthetic, are created via polymerization of many small molecules, known as monomers. Their consequently large molecular mass, relative to small molecule compounds, produces unique physical properties including toughness, high elasticity, viscoelasticity, and a tendency to form amorphous and semicrystalline structures rather than crystals. The term "polymer" derives from the Greek word πολύς (''polus'', meaning "many, much") and μέρος (''meros'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
