A review of the second law of thermodynamics and its application

Abstract

Over thousands of years, many great physicists, such as Carnot, Boltzmann, Plank, Clausius, to name only a few, have put great endeavor into unwinding the mysteries of thermodynamic studies. In recent decades, many innovations have been made by groundbreaking modern technologies, such as refrigerators and air conditioning, and both recent findings and formerly discovered concepts of thermodynamics have been explained deeply by modern scientists. The paper briefly introduces the definition of the second law of thermodynamics and the relative concepts and their application. This paper delves into the history and definition of the Carnot Theorem, the Irreversible Carnot engine and refrigerator principle, as well as the Coefficient of Performance (COP). After that, this paper will introduce a few relative concepts, including entropy, exergy, and the Clausius-Duhem inequality. In summary, this paper covers a basic overall explanation of the aforementioned concepts, as well as drawing conclusions about the experimental achievements of the early explorers of thermodynamics.