(BQ) Part 2 book "Chemistry for engineering students" has contents: Entropy and the second law of thermodynamics, chemical kinetics, chemical equilibrium, electrochemistry, nuclear chemistry. | 10 Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics OUTLINE INSIGHT INTO Recycling of Plastics Spontaneity Entropy The Second Law of Thermodynamics The Third Law of Thermodynamics Gibbs Free Energy Free Energy and Chemical Reactions INSIGHT INTO The Economics of Recycling Curbside recycling programs often collect “comingled” materials, as seen here at a Milwaukee site. Plastics, which make up about 85% of this pile, must be separated and sorted for recycling. Thomas A. Holme I Online homework for this chapter may be assigned in OWL. 318 n our discussions of chemical bonding, we introduced the idea that bonds form because doing so reduces the overall energy of the collection of atoms involved. We’ve seen many examples of chemical reactions, such as combustion and explosions, which also reduce the overall energy of the atoms and molecules involved. But if you try for just a moment, you should also be able to think of many common chemical and physical processes in which the energy of the system clearly increases. Ice cubes melt. The batteries in your laptop or cell phone are recharged. At least some endothermic chemical reactions occur regularly. As each of these cases shows, the energy of a system does not always decrease, despite our intuitive sense of a preference for minimizing energy. So how can we understand and predict which changes nature will actually favor? We will need to extend our understanding by introducing the second law of thermodynamics and exploring its ramifications. Although applications abound in virtually all fields of science and engineering, the impact of thermodynamics on our understanding of chemical reactions has been especially profound. We’ll explore the implications of the second law by looking into the recycling of plastics. Chapter Objectives After mastering this chapter, you should be able to ❚ describe the scientific and economic obstacles to more widespread recycling of plastics. ❚ .
