Introductory Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics

Chapter 17. Reaction Equilibria

We must first speak a little concerning contact or mutual touching, action, passion and reaction.

Daniel Sennert (1660)

Another important aspect of the thermodynamics of multicomponent systems is the rearrangement of atoms within and between molecules, known as chemical reaction. Equilibrium thermodynamic considerations tell us the direction and extent to which a reaction will go. As with phase equilibria, the constraint of minimum Gibbs energy dictates the equilibrium results at a fixed T and P.

We begin this chapter by noting that the material from Section 3.6 is important for this chapter and you may wish to read that section again. There are several steps to understand before the equilibrium conversion is calculated, ...