Chemical engineers face the challenge of learning the difficult concept and application of entropy and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. By following a visual approach and offering qualitative discussions of the role of molecular interactions, Koretsky helps them understand and visualize thermodynamics. Highlighted examples show how the material is applied in the real world. Expanded coverage includes biological content and examples, the Equation of State approach for both liquid and vapor phases in VLE, and the practical side of the 2nd Law. Engineers will then be able to use this resource as the basis for more advanced concepts.
Engineering and Chemical Thermodynamics is intended for use in the undergraduate thermodynamics
course(s) taught in the sophomore or junior year in most Chemical Engineering (ChE) and
Biological Engineering (BioE) Departments. For the majority of ChE and BioE undergraduate students,
chemical engineering thermodynamics, concentrating on the subjects of phase equilibria and
chemical reaction equilibria, is one of the most abstract and diffi cult core courses in the curriculum.
In fact, it has been noted by more than one thermodynamics guru (e.g., Denbigh, Sommerfeld) that
this subject cannot be mastered in a single encounter. Understanding comes at greater and greater
depths with every skirmish with this subject. Why another textbook in this area? This textbook is
targeted specifi cally at the sophomore or junior undergraduate who must, for the fi rst time, grapple
with the treatment of equilibrium thermodynamics in suffi cient detail to solve the wide variety
of problems that chemical engineers must tackle. It is a conceptually based text, meant to provide
students with a solid foundation in this subject in a single iteration. Its intent is to be both accessible
and rigorous. Its accessibility allows students to retain as much as possible through their fi rst pass
while its rigor provides them the foundation to understand more advanced treatises and forms the
basis of commercial computer simulations such as ASPEN®, HYSIS®, and CHEMCAD®.
