1. Introduction
Thermodynamics, the most important of the sciences of the 19th century, looks rather modest now, but its importance has by no means diminished, and it remains an important factor in the formulation of many modern sciences. The face of classical equilibrium thermodynamics has changed, thanks to the work of Gibbs [
1,
2], in two respects. First, pre-Gibbsian thermodynamics was the thermodynamics of cycles. This calculation method was ubiquitous, but completely disappeared (after the first third of the 20th century) after the spread of Gibbs’ thermodynamic potentials. The calculation of the work of the process using thermodynamic potentials is very simple: changing the thermodynamic potential under certain conditions is this work. Secondly, after Gibbs introduced the concept of chemical potential (the main physical quantity of chemistry), his thermodynamics is often called chemical. Chemical thermodynamics takes into account the change in the state of a system after a change in the quantities of its components, both as a result of their addition and in the course of chemical reactions. With the introduction of the chemical potential, the transition from closed systems (for which thermodynamics was developed at the beginning) to open systems is associated. Although Gibbs did not apply the concept of chemical potential to a solid, he showed that if this were done, then the chemical potential of a solid must be a tensor quantity, since a solid can be in equilibrium simultaneously with three of its different solutions in different directions. Here, for simplicity, we will assume that the state of matter is fluid and we will write down all the formulas for open fluid systems.
The main quantities of thermodynamics are the characteristic functions, by differentiation of which all thermodynamic parameters can be obtained (which is fixed in the fundamental thermodynamic equations). All thermodynamic potentials are characteristic functions, but not vice versa. For example, entropy is a characteristic function, but not a thermodynamic potential. A harmonious system of Gibbsian thermodynamics is built starting from the energy
U, more precisely from its fundamental equation
with
S as the entropy of the system,
T the absolute temperature,
A the area of the surface,
P the local vector of the external force (called stress) applied to the unit of the external surface of the system,
u the local displacement vector of the system surface. The scalar product
gives the elementary work of displacement of a unit surface. The integration is performed over the most closed surface (
A) of the system. The last term includes chemical potentials
and changes
in the number of molecules of the system components,
i numbers the system components. Together, the second and third terms on the right side of Equation (1) are the work done by external forces on the system. From it, in the form of the second term, mechanical work is singled out separately, so that
reflects all other types of work. If the system is surrounded by a homogeneous external environment (e.g., the atmosphere) with pressure
p (pressure and stress are always opposite in sign), then the second term is reduced to the well-known expression –
pdV with
V as the volume of the system.
Thus, the whole Equation (1) expresses the meaning of the first law of thermodynamics: an increase in the energy of a closed system is achieved by the influx of heat (written here, as is customary in equilibrium thermodynamics, in the form
) and the performance of work on system with external bodies. Equation (1) implies the condition
indicating that the internal energy is a thermodynamic potential at fixed entropy, boundaries of the system and quantities of all components.
Let us briefly recall other thermodynamic potentials. Free energy (adding the word "Helmholtz" is no longer accepted)
F is defined as
From Equations (1) and (3), we immediately get
and it follows from Equation (4)
that the free energy is a thermodynamic potential at constant temperature, quantities of all components and fixed boundaries of the system. Since isothermal processes are more often dealt with than adiabatic ones, the free energy is a more practical thermodynamic potential than the energy.
The next thermodynamic potential, Gibbs energy
G (Gibbs free energy, Gibbs thermodynamic potential), is well known for the case of a system surrounded by a homogeneous medium with a given pressure
p:
However, the definition of
G is ambiguous in the general case. Based on Equation (1), we can use the definition
From Equations (1) and (7), we find
From here, the condition follows
which means that the Gibbs energy is a thermodynamic potential at constant temperature, external stresses and quantities of all components. If atmospheric pressure is the only external stress, then, under conditions of a laboratory experiment, the Gibbs energy in the form of (6) is the only one suitable for calculating the work. This seems to be the most popular thermodynamic potential.
Let's move on to the enthalpy
H. This value is widely known as a heat function and, it would seem, has nothing to do with work. However, there are conditions when enthalpy can also play the role of a thermodynamic potential. Let's find these conditions. The definition of enthalpy is known only for a system in a medium with constant pressure
p:
Similarly to Equation (7), the enthalpy of a body of any nature and with an arbitrary distribution of external forces on it can be defined as
By varying Equation (11) and substituting Equation (1) into it, we find
from which it follows
The condition expressed in Equation (13) confirms that enthalpy can indeed be a thermodynamic potential at fixed entropy, quantities of all components and all external forces.
It is of note that the described thermodynamic potentials
U,
F,
G and
H are all such only for closed systems. In Gibbs' work "On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances" (1876) [
1,
2], they were described as characteristic functions and were not used to calculate the work. Subsequently, Gibbs took up statistical mechanics for closed and open systems, and hence for open systems comes the fifth thermodynamic potential Ω, which we call the "grand thermodynamic potential" because it is associated with a grand canonical distribution. For it there is a strict definition
Varying Equation (14) and substituting Equation (1), we find the fundamental equation for Ω
Equation (16) indicates that Ω works as a grand thermodynamic potential at constant temperature, displacement vector of the system boundary and chemical potentials.
As is known, for a homogeneous (single-phase) system, the five considered thermodynamic potentials in the absence of other (non-mechanical) types of work (
= 0) are written as
It can be seen from this list of formulas that each thermodynamic potential is obtained by subtracting some terms from Equation (17), which corresponds to the Legendre transformation. But, when we get to Equation (21), there is nothing more to subtract. Thus, Equations (17)–(21) are a complete list of the main thermodynamic potentials for a homogeneous system.
A further increase in the number of thermodynamic potentials for a homogeneous system can only be associated with the modification of Equations (17)–(21). So, when passing from Equation (18) to Equation (21), we subtract the whole sum, but only some terms of the sum can be subtracted. If we arbitrarily divide the components of the system into two groups with indices
k and
j and subtract from Equation (18) only the sum of the group
k, then we get
where the new thermodynamic potential
plays the role of free energy with respect to the components of group
j and the role of a grand thermodynamic potential with respect to the components of group
k (such thermodynamic potentials are called hybrid). The hybrid thermodynamic potential is of great practical importance for systems with solids, when the
j group refers to the immobile components of the solid, and the
k group refers to the mobile components of the surrounding solution. In particular, it is important for mechanochemistry.
The foregoing referred to homogeneous (single-phase) systems. For heterogeneous systems, where, in addition to phases, there are also interfacial surfaces, the situation is different. The expression for a grand thermodynamic potential (21) in this case takes the form
and from here it is quite possible to subtract
In this way, a new thermodynamic potential was introduced, called the
J-potential [
3,
4]. In fact, the
J-potential is a whole class of new thermodynamic potentials for heterogeneous systems. The purpose of this article is to introduce the reader to the
J-potential and, as an example, demonstrate its application to solve a specific physical problem. As such, we chose the study of the dependence of the chemical potential of a substance in a gas bubble on the size of the bubble.
2. J-Potentials
As we agreed above, in this article, for simplicity, we restrict ourselves to consideration of fluid systems. For them, the approach to introducing
J-potentials was recently developed in Ref. [
5], and we will follow this approach. The most general definition of the
J-potential can be formulated in terms of the grand thermodynamic potential Ω as follows:
with
V as the volume of the system, and there is some pressure
chosen for reasons of convenience. For example, it can be an external pressure
p (the classic case, then the
J-potential is denoted as
Jc) or the real pressure in one of the phases of a heterogeneous system. The latter, in addition to phases, also has interfacial surfaces with surface tension
γ and interfacial lines with line tension
τ. For an arbitrary heterogeneous system, the grand thermodynamic potential can be written in the form
where
k numbers the bulk phases with volumes
,
s numbers the interfaces with areas
, and
t numbers the lines with lengths
. Substituting Equation (25) into Equation (24) gives an expression for the
J-potential of a heterogeneous system
where the obvious relation has been taken into account
Let us also give a differential fundamental equation for the
J-potential. To do this, we need to recall a similar equation for a grand thermodynamic potential
Differentiating Equation (24) and substituting Equation (28) into it, we obtain
In particular, for the classical
J-potential
we have
In accordance with Equation (29), the Gibbs equilibrium principle is written in terms of the
J-potential as
Let us now introduce the hybrid
J-potential (the notation is
To do this, we divide the system components into two groups
j and
k and substitute the hybrid grand thermodynamic potential, according to Equation (22), into definition expressed in Equation (24):
Here one can also distinguish between the classical hybrid
J-potential (for
and special hybrid
J-potentials (for a different choice of
Fundamental equations (32) and (33) for the classical hybrid
J-potential are simplified to the form
In the Gibbsian thermodynamics of capillary systems, surface and line excess values of thermodynamic potentials are also introduced. However, in the definition expressed in Equation (24), the second term is a bulk quantity, the surface excess of which is equal to zero. Therefore, we can conclude that the surface excess of the
J-potential is always equal to the surface excess of a grand thermodynamic potential [
4]:
where the overline means the surface excess. The problem is solved similarly with line excesses (denoted by two lines above):
The foregoing is quite enough for the first acquaintance with the J-potential. Here we turn to an example of using the J-potential in a theoretical study.