Irreversible Thermodynamics, Pages

We may now treat the porous plug thermal phenomena from a somewhat more quantitative thermodynamic standpoint In the first place it must be pointed out that we are dealing with an irreversible phenomenon, since we cannot make the gas retrace its path from low to high, the pressure difference being a finite one, and the heat is therefore dissipated However, the function (U + pv) depends solely on the actual state of the gas, and so its variation in value between two states depends solely on the two states and not on the path of transformation between them., whether that be reversible or not Now we have already seen (page 55) that—... 

The irreversible removal of one product is a powerful method of thermodynamic control when all products are in equilibrium. This type of control is commonly exercised through dehydration to give enones, e.g. (81), product ionisation to give stable 3-dicarbonyl anions, e.g. (82), or decarboxylation (page 108), e.g. to give (83). ... 

In contrast to equilibrium thermodynamics, the thermodynamics of irreversible processes portray the application of thermodynamic methods as dynamic and therefore time-dependent procedures. The name Prigo-gine must be mentioned in relationship to this—he received for his work in this area the Nobel Prize in the year 1977. A new, very complex thermodynamics originated from his examination method for chemical reactions, and was developed by us, to come to a successful description of heterogenous multiphase polymer systems. This theory interprets crazing fracture energy dissipation and fracture mechanism in a totally new way on the basis of dissipative structures in polymer blends and their dynamics, For a list of abbreviations used in this section sec page 610,... 

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