Question

Explain in terms of thermodynamics why liquid water boils spontaneously at 101 °C at 1 bar.​

Answer 1

Explanation:

One of the major goals of chemical thermodynamics is to establish criteria for predicting whether a particular reaction or process will occur spontaneously. We have developed one such criterion, the change in entropy of the universe: if ΔSuniv>0 for a process or a reaction, then the process will occur spontaneously as written. Conversely, if ΔSuniv<0, a process cannot occur spontaneously; if ΔSuniv=0, the system is at equilibrium. The sign of ΔSuniv is a universally applicable and infallible indicator of the spontaneity of a reaction. Unfortunately, using ΔSuniv requires that we calculate ΔS for both a system and its surroundings. This is not particularly useful for two reasons