LearnChemE

Chemical Potential: Screencasts

Shows how the chemical potentials of a solid and a liquid change at constant temperature as pressure increases over a narrow pressure range for a single-component. The different behaviors for water and ethanol are demonstrated.

We suggest you list the important points in this screencast as a way to increase retention.

Shows how the chemical potentials of a solid and a liquid change at constant pressure as temperature increases over a narrow temperature range for a single component.

We suggest you list the important points in this screencast as a way to increase retention.

Optional screencast: What is Chemical Potential? Multi-Component

Important Equations:

Chemical potential definition for a mixture:

μi(Gni)P,T,nji

where μi is the chemical potential of component i
G is the total Gibbs free energy (nG) for the mixture
ni is the number of moles of component i

For a pure fluid:

dμ=dG=SdT+VdP

where μ is the chemical potential (kJ/mol)
G is the molar Gibbs free energy (kJ/mol)
S is the molar entropy (kJ/mol-K)
T is the temperature (K)
V is the molar volume (m3/mol)
P is the pressure (bar).

For mixtures:

dG=VdPSdT+iμidni

where GV, and S are extensive variables
μi is the chemical potential of component i
ni is the number of moles of component i
The summation is over all components in the mixture.

At vapor-liquid equilibrium for a binary system:

μ1V=μ1Lμ2V=μ2L

For component i in a mixture:

μiμi,pure=RTln(fi^fi)

where fi^ is the fugacity of component i in the mixture
fi is the pure component fugacity at the same temperature and pressure

For component i in an ideal-gas mixture:

μiig=Giig+RTln(yi)

where μiig is the chemical potential of component i in the mixture
Giig is the Gibbs free energy of the pure-component ideal gas
R is the ideal gas constant
T is the absolute temperature
yi is the mole fraction of component i in the mixture.