Introductory Chemical Thermodynamics
- Textbooks: You may use either Thermodynamics, Statistical Thermodynamics, and Kinetics (4th edition) by Thomas Engel and Philip Reid; or Physical Chemistry: A Molecular Approach (any edition), by D.A. McQuarrie and J.D. Simon.
This course is a basic introductory course to thermodynamics with emphasis on applications in chemistry and biology. The course primarily concerns the first, second, and third laws of thermodynamics and their application to pure substances, mixtures, and chemical reactions. The course provides the necessary background to study changes in state of a pure substance and of chemical reactions involving multiple substances. Topics covered in this course include: a review of calculus of several variables; an introduction to path dependent quantities,such as heat and work, thermodynamic state functions, including the internal energy, entropy, enthalpy, and Gibbs energy functions, and reversible and irreversible changes in state; applications of the first law of thermodynamics, including calorimetry, the measurement of heat capacities, a discussion of both ideal and non-ideal behaviour in gases; chemical equilibrium in the gas phase; phase transitions of pure substances; liquid-vapour equilibrium in binary solutions.
Please remember that the Undergraduate Calendar is always the official source for all course descriptions.