Entropy Determination and Significance

Unfortunately, it is significantly more difficult to determine the component potential and entropic components of the total free energy, than it is to calculate the free energy itself. Equations that allow the entropy difference (and hence enthalpy difference via Equation 13) to be calculated at the same time we are determining the free energy have been reported. For example, for TI, the following expression can be used 9... 

Up to this point the essential equations have been presented. Now, it is possible to analyze the work carried out in connection with the classical thermodynamic approach. The first systematic study of a thermodynamic adsorption quantity was perhaps the work done by de Boer and coworkers [10] on the determination, interpretation and significance of the enthalpy and entropy of adsorption. Their papers analyzed almost all aspects of the experimental determination of the entropy and how to interpret the values obtained in terms of two extreme models, i.e., those of mobile and locahzed adsorption, which today have lost much of their usefulness. To catalog the behavior of the adsorbed film as localized or mobile is a very simplistic solution and it has been demonstrated [9] that in most cases the adsorbed film is neither completely localized nor completely mobile. This approach also is somehow outdated because numerical simulations provide a better microscopic interpretation of the system s behavior. 

Both types of mutations have been made in T4 lysozyme. The chosen mutations were Gly 77-Ala, which caused an increase in Tm of 1 °C, and Ala 82-Pro, which increased Tm by 2 °C. The three-dimensional structures of these mutant enzymes were also determined the Ala 82-Pro mutant had a structure essentially identical to the wild type except for the side chain of residue 82 this strongly indicates that the effect on Tm of Ala 82-Pro is indeed due to entropy changes. Such effects are expected to be additive, so even though each mutation makes only a small contribution to increased stability, the combined effect of a number of such mutations should significantly increase a protein s stability. 

The wide variation in the entropy factors for both the substituted phenyl and heterocyclic compounds and in particular for the methoxyphenyl and furan derivatives was considered to be strong evidence for solvent effects being predominant in determining the activation entropy. Consequently, discussion of the substituent effects in terms of electronic factors alone requires caution in this reaction. Caution is also needed since rates for the substituted phenyl compounds were only determined over a 20 °C range. The significance of entropy factors has also been indicated by the poor correlation of the data of the electrophilic reactivities of the heterocyclic compounds, as derived from protodemercuration, with the data for other electrophilic substitutions and related reactions572. 

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