The Law of Mass Action

Shu-Kun Lin

doi:10.3390/i3030232

Abstract

During the weekend I quickly browsed through this book [2] with great interest and recommend all chemists, whether experimental chemists or theoretical chemists, to read it.[...]

Highlights

H = k lnW as a statistical function and considers the identity of H and the thermodynamic entropy S only as an empirical postulate
In the preface, the authors said that the laws of mass action would breakdown if the number of particles is small and mentioned that 107 molecules of water would result in the number of ion pair per vesicle being either one or zero if pH=7
Sci. 2002, 3 particle considered over a long time frame Many chemical processes such as an irreversible decomposition reaction do not involve interactions (e.g. 14C decay)

Summary

Introduction

One reason I recommend this book is that, to my knowledge, very few active chemists have made such a serious, insightful and fair treatment of the concept of entropy, which has long been my favorite topic of study. Many authors of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics books have ignored the Gibbs Paradox [3], whereas in this book a section with three full pages (section 1.4, pages 21-23) is devoted to it. As a chemist I spent a large part of my time working on this paradox and related problems.

Results

Conclusion