Statistical-mechanic

Statistical Thermodynamics of Adsorbates. First, from a thermodynamic or statistical mechanical point of view, the internal energy and entropy of a molecule should be different in the adsorbed state from that in the gaseous state. This is quite apart from the energy of the adsorption bond itself or the entropy associated with confining a molecule to the interfacial region. It is clear, for example, that the adsorbed molecule may lose part or all of its freedom to rotate. 

The statistical mechanical approach, density functional theory, allows description of the solid-liquid interface based on knowledge of the liquid properties [60, 61], This approach has been applied to the solid-liquid interface for hard spheres where experimental data on colloidal suspensions and theory [62] both indicate 0.6 this 

In statistical mechanics (e.g. the theory of specific heats of gases) a degree of freedom means an independent mode of absorbing energy by movement of atoms. Thus a mon- 

Thus the kinetic and statistical mechanical derivations may be brought into identity by means of a specific series of assumptions, including the assumption that the internal partition functions are the same for the two states (see Ref. 12). As discussed in Section XVI-4A, this last is almost certainly not the case because as a minimum effect some loss of rotational degrees of freedom should occur on adsorption. 

T. L. Hill, Statistical Mechanics, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1956. 

For those who are familiar with the statistical mechanical interpretation of entropy, which asserts that at 0 K substances are nonnally restricted to a single quantum state, and hence have zero entropy, it should be pointed out that the conventional thennodynamic zero of entropy is not quite that, since most elements and compounds are mixtures of isotopic species that in principle should separate at 0 K, but of course do not. The thennodynamic entropies reported in tables ignore the entropy of isotopic mixing, and m some cases ignore other complications as well, e.g. ortho- and para-hydrogen. 

MacKenzie and co-workers [79]. Related is a statistical mechanical treatment by Reiss and co-workers [80] (see also Schonhom [81]). 

It is customary in statistical mechanics to obtain the average properties of members of an ensemble, an essentially infinite set of systems subject to the same constraints. Of course each of the systems contains the 

At its foundation level, statistical mechanics mvolves some profound and difficult questions which are not fiilly understood, even for systems in equilibrium. At the level of its applications, however, the rules of calculation tliat have been developed over more than a century have been very successfLil. 

Any detailed discussion of statistical mechanics would be hiappropriate for this section, especially since other sections (A2.2 and A2.3) treat this in detail. However, a few aspects that relate to classical themiodynaniics deserve brief mention. 

Density functional theory from statistical mechanics is a means to describe the thermodynamics of the solid phase with information about the fluid [17-19]. In density functional theory, one makes an ansatz about the structure of the solid, usually describing the particle positions by Gaussian distributions around their lattice sites. The free 

On the other hand, in the theoretical calculations of statistical mechanics, it is frequently more convenient to use volume as an independent variable, so it is important to preserve the general importance of the chemical potential as something more than a quantity GTwhose usefulness is restricted to conditions of constant temperature and pressure. 

B. Widom, Structure and Thermodynamics of Interfaces, in Statistical Mechanics and Statistical Methods in Theory and Application, Plenum, New York, 1977, pp. 33-71. 

We first consider tlnee examples as a prelude to the general discussion of basic statistical mechanics. These are (i) non-mteracting spin-i particles in a magnetic field, (ii) non-interacting point particles in a box, 

Given this experimental result, it is plausible to assume (and is easily shown by statistical mechanics) that the chemical potential of a substance with partial pressure p. in an ideal-gas mixture is equal to that in the one-component ideal gas at pressure p = p. 

The total change d.S can be detennined, as has been seen, by driving the subsystem a back to its initial state, but the separation into dj.S and dj S is sometimes ambiguous. Any statistical mechanical interpretation of the second law requires that, at least for any volume element of macroscopic size, dj.S > 0. However, the total 

Although the preceding derivation is the easier to follow, the BET equation also may be derived from statistical mechanics by a procedure similar to that described in the case of the Langmuir equation [41,42]. 

A quantitative theory of rate processes has been developed on the assumption that the activated state has a characteristic enthalpy, entropy and free energy the concentration of activated molecules may thus be calculated using statistical mechanical methods. Whilst the theory gives a very plausible treatment of very many rate processes, it suffers from the difficulty of calculating the thermodynamic properties of the transition state. 

Clearly, it is more desirable somehow to obtain detailed structural information on multilayer films so as perhaps to settle the problem of how properly to construct the potential function. Some attempts have been made to develop statistical mechanical other theoretical treatments of condensed layers in a potential field success has been reasonable (see Refs. 142, 143). 

It seems appropriate to assume the applicability of equation (A2.1.63) to sufficiently dilute solutions of nonvolatile solutes and, indeed, to electrolyte species. This assumption can be validated by other experimental methods (e.g. by electrochemical measurements) and by statistical mechanical theory. 

Conservation laws at a microscopic level of molecular interactions play an important role. In particular, energy as a conserved variable plays a central role in statistical mechanics. Another important concept for equilibrium systems is the law of detailed balance. Molecular motion can be viewed as a sequence of collisions, each of which is akin to a reaction. Most often it is the momentum, energy and angrilar momentum of each of the constituents that is changed during a collision if the molecular structure is altered, one has a chemical reaction. The law of detailed balance implies that, in equilibrium, the number of each reaction in the forward direction is the same as that in the reverse direction i.e. each microscopic reaction is in equilibrium. This is a consequence of the time reversal syimnetry of mechanics. 

The coefficients B, C, D, etc for each particular gas are tenned its second, third, fourth, etc. vihal coefficients, and are functions of the temperature only. It can be shown, by statistical mechanics, that 5 is a function of the interaction of an isolated pair of molecules, C is a fiinction of the simultaneous interaction of tln-ee molecules, D, of four molecules, etc., a feature suggested by the fomi of equation (A2.1.54). 

There is, of course, a mass of rather direct evidence on orientation at the liquid-vapor interface, much of which is at least implicit in this chapter and in Chapter IV. The methods of statistical mechanics are applicable to the calculation of surface orientation of assymmetric molecules, usually by introducing an angular dependence to the inter-molecular potential function (see Refs. 67, 68, 77 as examples). Widom has applied a mean-held approximation to a lattice model to predict the tendency of AB molecules to adsorb and orient perpendicular to the interface between phases of AA and BB [78]. In the case of water, a molecular dynamics calculation concluded that the surface dipole density corresponded to a tendency for surface-OH groups to point toward the vapor phase [79]. 

Another important accomplislnnent of the free electron model concerns tire heat capacity of a metal. At low temperatures, the heat capacity of a metal goes linearly with the temperature and vanishes at absolute zero. This behaviour is in contrast with classical statistical mechanics. According to classical theories, the equipartition theory predicts that a free particle should have a heat capacity of where is the Boltzmann constant. An ideal gas has a heat capacity consistent with tliis value. The electrical conductivity of a metal suggests that the conduction electrons behave like free particles and might also have a heat capacity of 3/fg, 

In passing one should note that the metliod of expressing the chemical potential is arbitrary. The amount of matter of species in this article, as in most tliemiodynamics books, is expressed by the number of moles nit can, however, be expressed equally well by the number of molecules N. (convenient in statistical mechanics) or by the mass m- (Gibbs original treatment). 

Electrons, protons and neutrons and all other particles that have s = are known as fennions. Other particles are restricted to s = 0 or 1 and are known as bosons. There are thus profound differences in the quantum-mechanical properties of fennions and bosons, which have important implications in fields ranging from statistical mechanics to spectroscopic selection mles. It can be shown that the spin quantum number S associated with an even number of fennions must be integral, while that for an odd number of them must be half-integral. The resulting composite particles behave collectively like bosons and fennions, respectively, so the wavefunction synnnetry properties associated with bosons can be relevant in chemical physics. One prominent example is the treatment of nuclei, which are typically considered as composite particles rather than interacting protons and neutrons. Nuclei with even atomic number tlierefore behave like individual bosons and those with odd atomic number as fennions, a distinction that plays an important role in rotational spectroscopy of polyatomic molecules. 

On compression, a gaseous phase may condense to a liquid-expanded, L phase via a first-order transition. This transition is difficult to study experimentally because of the small film pressures involved and the need to avoid any impurities [76,193]. There is ample evidence that the transition is clearly first-order there are discontinuities in v-a plots, a latent heat of vaporization associated with the transition and two coexisting phases can be seen. Also, fluctuations in the surface potential [194] in the two phase region indicate two-phase coexistence. The general situation is reminiscent of three-dimensional vapor-liquid condensation and can be treated by the two-dimensional van der Waals equation (Eq. Ill-104) [195] or statistical mechanical models [191]. 

The grand canonical ensemble is a set of systems each with the same volume V, the same temperature T and the same chemical potential p (or if there is more than one substance present, the same set of p. s). This corresponds to a set of systems separated by diathennic and penneable walls and allowed to equilibrate. In classical thennodynamics, the appropriate fimction for fixed p, V, and Tis the productpV(see equation (A2.1.3 7)1 and statistical mechanics relates pV directly to the grand canonical partition function 

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