Identify Chemical Potential Plots

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Use this Demonstration to practice identifying the relative slope of chemical potential versus temperature or pressure for various liquids, solids and vapors. The Demonstration randomizes what exactly you have to identify. After guessing, you can see the correct answer with the "solution" checkbox. You must select the solution box before moving to the next step. You can click "new problem" at any time.

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Test your knowledge of how chemical potential relates to temperature, pressure and phase. In combination with other learning methods, self-testing is an effective way of internalizing complex thermodynamic concepts.

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Contributed by: Neil Hendren (February 2019)
Additional contributions by: Rachael L. Baumann and John L. Falconer
(University of Colorado Boulder, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA


Details

The chemical potential (J/(K-mol)) is equal to the Gibbs free energy for a single component. The differential of the chemical potential and Gibbs free energy is:

where is volume, is pressure, is entropy and is temperature.

All compounds exist in the phase with the lowest chemical potential for that temperature and pressure. As such, the intersection of two chemical potential lines for different phases represents the boiling point, melting point, sublimation point or triple point [1].

Reference

[1] P. W. Atkins and J. de Paula, Atkins' Physical Chemistry, 8th ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.


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