Non-redundant and natural variables definition of heat valid for open systems

Authors : Juan Ramón GONZÁLEZ ÁLVAREZ

Pages : 102-108

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Publication Date : 2013-09-05

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :Although an unambiguous definition of heat is available for closed systems, the question of how best to define heat in open systems is not yet settled. After introducing a set of physical requirements for the definition of heat, this article reviews the non-equivalent definitions of heat for open systems used by Callen, Casas-Vázquez, DeGroot, Fox, Haase, Jou, Kondepudi, Lebon, Mazur, Misner, Prigogine, Smith, Thorne, and Wheeler, emphasizing which physical requirements are not met. A subsequent section deals with the main objective of this article and introduces a new definition of heat that avoids the difficulties of the existent definitions, providing insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(i); a complete distinction between open and closed systems, insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(ii); non-redundancy, insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(iii); natural variables for the thermodynamic potentials, and insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(iv); a sound, complete, and intuitive generalization of classical thermodynamic expressions.
Keywords : Thermodynamics, First Law, Second Law, Heat, Open systems