Gibbs free energy: Difference between revisions

From The School of Biomedical Sciences Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Created page with "1800s, Josiah Willard Gibbs, (1839-1903) submitted scientific papers which contained mostly observations on systems at equilibrium. To do so Gibbs mathematically combined both en..."
(No difference)

Revision as of 16:10, 28 November 2013

1800s, Josiah Willard Gibbs, (1839-1903) submitted scientific papers which contained mostly observations on systems at equilibrium. To do so Gibbs mathematically combined both enthalpy and entropy (the measure of energy release and disorder in a system respectively) that also incorporates the second law of thermodynamics:

entropy can never decrease, only increase for a reaction to take place.

Why doesn't free energy = enthalpy - entropy?

Reasoning behind Gibbs equation 
The signs for enthalpy and entropy must be opposites to each other, "because one function tends to a maximum and the other tends to a minimum." As a consequence the one equation proposed for this "unknown energy function" could be:

X= U - S (where X = Function, U = Enthalpy, S = Entropy)

Although this must be carried out under standard conditions, so U must be substituted for an H to demonstrate a constant pressure. (of 1atm) In addition to this, the units are wrong in our current equation; as we know, enthalpy is measure in joules (J) of energy, entropy on the other hand is measured in joules per kelvin. (J K-1) Thus, we must also multiply entropy (S) by temperature in Kelvin. (T) Giving us the following potential equation:

G = H - TS (where G = Function, H = Enthalpy, S = Entropy, T = Temperature)