Entropy (and free energy)

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Chemists see entropy as providing the fundamental way of deciding on the expected direction and extent of chemical change. Reactions tend to go in the direction which means that there is an overall increase in entropy - taking into account both the entropy change of the reaction system and its surroundings.

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Recently Asked Questions

• What is entropy and how does it relate to the ways of arrangement? 080608
• I was doing some practice papers and there was one question that asked for an interpretation of delta S_tot. It was a large positive number, 8000, and from what I understand all that entropy suggests is whether the reaction is spontaneous or not, i.e. if total entropy is positive then it is spontaneous. However, the answer was that "the reaction goes to completion". Could you explain that and suggest anything else a high entropy value means for a reaction, what a high equilibrium constant means for a reaction and what a high rate constant means for a reaction? Thank you.
• I am wondering why the all but barium, group 2 metal ions in aqueous solution have negative entropy? it's just from looking at the Nuffield book of data, I found it strange that almost all of one group is like this compared with other grouped elements.

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Tests

• Entropy (A2)

updated: 13 January 2004