Course Information

This course covers the basic concepts of chemical engineering thermodynamics. It includes a review of the First Law (which was originally covered in CBE 20255), and an introduction to the Second Law.  The First and Second Laws are described and used to solve problems involving process equipment, power generation, and refrigeration. Using basic concepts from molecular theory, models are developed to describe the properties of materials via equations of state and activity coefficient models. These models are used to correlate and predict phase equilibria, which is the basis of many separation processes. Other models are developed to describe the non-ideality of gas and liquid phases and then they are used to solve vapor-liquid, liquid-liquid, gas-liquid and solid-liquid equilibrium problems. It is shown how thermodynamics can be used to calculate the equilibrium behavior of reacting systems.