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Thermodynamic Equilibrium of Multi-Temperature Gas Mixtures

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Molecular Physics and Hypersonic Flows

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASIC,volume 482))

Abstract

This theoretical paper deals with the thermodynamic equilibrium of multi-temperature gas mixtures. After a brief review of basic notions and methods relative to the chemical equilibrium of gas mixtures in complete thermal equilibrium, the fundamental relations energy and entropy describing the thermodynamics of gas mixtures in disequilibrium with respect to energy and mass exchanges are formally introduced. Possible constraints arising from the subset of state parameters associated with the molecular degrees of freedom are recognized and the importance of the role they play in determining the thermodynamic equilibrium of the system is discussed. In particular, the influence that a partially constrained thermal equilibrium exercises on the equations governing the associated chemical equilibrium is made evident by performing the equilibrium analysis for the cases of entropic and energetic freezing of the molecular degrees of freedom; the analysis shows that the minimization/maximization of energy/entropy may not necessarily lead to the vanishing of the chemical reaction affinities and that, therefore, the uniqueness of the chemical equilibrium equations is lost when the thermal equilibrium is partially constrained. The equivalence of the fundamental relations energy and entropy to determine the equilibrium conditions is shown to be maintained also in multi-temperature circumstances; the problem of the lack of such equivalence for the Helmholtz and Gibbs potentials is briefly mentioned. As an application, the chemical equilibrium of a two-temperature partially ionized gas is considered with the purpose to show how the uncertainty associated with the two-temperature Saha equation can be resolved in the framework of the theory proposed in this work.

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Abbreviations

F :

Helmholtz potential

f :

number of frozen chemical reactions

G :

Gibbs potential

H :

enthalpy

h :

Planck constant

k :

Boltzmann constant

G :

Lagrangian function

M e :

electron mass

m :

total mass

N A, N A+ :

atom, ion number density

N °a :

low temperature atom number density

N e- :

electron number density

n :

number of components

p :

thermodynamic pressure

q A, q A+ :

atom, ion electronic partition function

R G :

universal gas constant, 8.3144 J/K

r :

number of independent chemical reactions

S :

entropy

T :

temperature (thermal equilibrium)

T e :

electron temperature

T h :

heavy species temperature

U :

energy

V :

volume

θ :

arbitrary reference temperature

λ S , λ Ψ S , λ U :

Lagrange multipliers

φΦΨ:

entropic potentials

A k :

chemical affinity

\( {{\bar{A}}_{k}} \) :

no standard name39

ε :

number of independent degrees of freedom

\( {{\bar{\ell }}_{ \in }} \) :

number of (entropically/energetically) frozen degrees of freedom

M ε :

molar mass

M ε :

molecular mass

m ε :

mass

m °ε :

initial mass

N e :

number density

p εδ :

partial pressure

q εδ :

partition function

S εδ :

entropy

T εδ :

temperature

U εδ :

energy

ε εδ,i :

quantum state energy

μ ε :

chemical potential

μ εδ :

contribution to chemical potential

V :

stoichiometric coefficient

ξ k :

progress variable

δ :

degrees of freedom

ε :

components

k :

chemical reactions

i :

quantum states

(dZ) X,Y :

differential of Z with X, Y constant

\( \mathop{\sum }\limits_{{ \in ,\delta }}^{{nf}} \) :

summation extended to non-frozen degrees of freedom

\( \mathop{\sum }\limits_{{ \in ,\delta }}^{f} \) :

summation extended to frozen degrees of freedom

\( \mathop{\sum }\limits_{k}^{{nf}} \) :

summation extended to non-frozen chemical reactions

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  39. In order for the terminology to conform to this more general situation, it seems appropriate to extend the definition of affinity. Given that the chemical potential \( {{\mu }_{ \in }} = \sum\limits_{{\delta = 1}}^{{{{\ell }_{ \in }}}} {{{\mu }_{ \in }}\delta } \) and the quantity \( \sum\limits_{{\delta = 1}}^{{{{\ell }_{ \in }}}} {{{\mu }_{ \in }}\delta /{{T}_{ \in }}\delta } \) are state equations [see (10), (11)] in, respectively, the energetic and entropic schemes, it appears consistent to define the expression (28) as entropic affinity and to rename the expression (29) as energetic affinity. In this way, the equations (21), (27) indicate, respectively, that the chemical equilibrium driven by an entropically/energetically constrained thermal equilibrium is characterized by the vanishing of the energetic/entropic affinities of the non-frozen chemical reactions.

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  43. Morro and Romeo assume, implicitly, the mutual thermal equilibrium of the degrees of freedom of the heavy species A and A+; thus, and using their notation, the gas mixture they consider is characterized by the equilibrium temperature of the heavy species θ h and the translational temperature θ e of the electrons.

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  44. See Sec. 4 of Ref. 29.

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© 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Giordano, D. (1996). Thermodynamic Equilibrium of Multi-Temperature Gas Mixtures. In: Capitelli, M. (eds) Molecular Physics and Hypersonic Flows. NATO ASI Series, vol 482. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0267-1_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0267-1_15

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-6604-4

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