Module Notes
Faculty Member (Members):
Postgraduate, Fall Semester
Module Type: Core Courses
Teaching Language: English/Greek
Course Code: GCHM_Β301
ECTS Credits: 12
Module Availability on Erasmus Students: No
Module Details

The student is expected to get a deep knowledge of the fundamental principles and laws of thermodynamics and how to use them in order to calculate: thermodynamic properties and thermodynamic derivatives from a minimal set of volumetric data, phase equilibria for all different types of mixtures and solutions, the exchange of heat and work in several processes by combining the 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamics, heat-work interactions in physical processes, and the work that can be produced by a process involving chemical reactions

At the end of the course, the student will be able to:

  1. combine the 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamics in order to compute the exchange of heat and work in physical processes
  2. compute practically all thermodynamic properties of a physical system (pure substance or mixture) from some volumetric data (PVT properties)
  3. compute phase behavior of multi-component systems corresponding to gas-gas, gas-liquid, liquid-liquid, solid-solid, gas-solid equilibrium
  4. compute accurately chemical reaction constants over a broad range of conditions (temperature, pressure, composition)
  5. analyze systematically (again by combining the 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamics) processes involving chemical reactions (e.g., in a fuel cell) for the production of work

Good knowledge of thermodynamics (1 semester course is enough) and very good knowledge of Physical Chemistry I (taught in our Department one semester earlier)

  1. Basic concepts and principles. System, environment, interaction, property, work, heat, energy, restraints
  2. The 1st law of thermodynamics for closed systems and open systems. Applications to steady-state processes, and to processes involving transients
  3. Reversibility and Entropy: Clausius’ theorem, the 2nd law of thermodynamics for closed and open systems, the entropy balance and applications, power generation and refrigeration cycles
  4. Mathematical foundation of thermodynamics: the entropy representation, homogeneous functions and the Euler theorem, the Maxwell equations, the Euler equation, the Gibbs-Duhem equation, other representations, Legendre transforms, the Born diagram
  5. Evaluation of thermodynamic partial derivatives and applications (calculation of the Joule-Thomson coefficient, etc.), thermodynamics of rubber elasticity
  6. Evaluation of the thermodynamic properties of real substances, the virial, the van der Waals, and the Peng-Robinson equations of state, cubic equations of state, evaluation of changes of thermodynamic properties using equations of state.
  7. Thermodynamic equilibrium and stability. Criteria for equilibrium, stability of thermodynamic systems.
  8. Calculation of pure fluid-phase equilibria. Fugacity of a pure gaseous, a pure liquid, and a pure solid phase, computation of vapor pressure from an equation of state, thermodynamic properties of phase transitions (Clausius-Clapeyron equation, Antoine equation, first- and second-order phase transitions)
  9. Phase equilibrium for multi-component systems: Thermodynamic description of mixtures, criteria for phase equilibrium in multi-component systems, partial molar Gibbs free energy and the generalized Gibbs-Duhem equation, ideal and excess mixing properties.
  10. Estimation of the Gibbs free energy and fugacity of a component in a mixture. Activity coefficient models. Vapor-liquid equilibrium using activity coefficient or equations of state models, gas-liquid, liquid-liquid, liquid-solid, solid-solid, gas-solid equilibria, osmotic pressure, freezing-point depression
  11. Combined chemical and phase equilibrium: Balance equations for reacting systems, thermodynamics of mechanical and chemical explosions, production of work, applications to processes such as combustion and explosion, applications to fuel cells.
  1. S. Sandler, Chemical and engineering thermodynamics, 3rd ed., John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York (1999).
  2. 2. J.W. Tester and M. Modell, Thermodynamics and its applications, 3rd ed., Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey (1997).

The instructor prefers teaching by writing a lot on the blackboard, repeating the material, making connections with previous classes or other branches of chemical engineering, solving many exercises in the class

Weekly homework sets, a self-evaluation midterm exam, final exam