Geometric description of chemical reactions
Abstract
We use the formalism of Geometrothermodynamics to describe chemical reactions in the context of equilibrium thermodynamics. Any chemical reaction in a closed system is shown to be described by a geodesic in a $2-$dimensional manifold that can be interpreted as the equilibrium space of the reaction. We first show this in the particular cases of a reaction with only two species corresponding to either two ideal gases or two van der Waals gases. We then consider the case of a reaction with an arbitrary number of species. The initial equilibrium state of the geodesic is determined by the initial conditions of the reaction. The final equilibrium state, which follows from a thermodynamic analysis of the reaction, is shown to correspond to a coordinate singularity of the thermodynamic metric which describes the equilibrium manifold.
- Publication:
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arXiv e-prints
- Pub Date:
- January 2013
- DOI:
- 10.48550/arXiv.1301.0262
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1301.0262
- Bibcode:
- 2013arXiv1301.0262Q
- Keywords:
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- Mathematical Physics;
- Mathematics - Differential Geometry;
- Physics - Chemical Physics