文献类型：期刊文献

英文题名：Explaining Thermodynamic Potential to Undergraduates

作者：Xu, Xiaofei[1];Tang, Weiqiang[1];Gao, Qingwei[2];Qiao, Chongzhi[3,4];Peng, Yangfeng[1];Zhao, Shuangliang[1,5,6]

机构：[1]East China Univ Sci & Technol, Sch Chem Engn, Shanghai 200237, Peoples R China;[2]Shanghai Univ Elect Power, Coll Environm & Chem Engn, Shanghai Key Lab Mat Protect & Adv Mat Elect Power, Shanghai 200090, Peoples R China;[3]Beijing Normal Univ, Sch Syst Sci, Beijing 100875, Peoples R China;[4]Beijing Normal Univ, Inst Nonequilibrium Syst, Beijing 100875, Peoples R China;[5]Guangxi Univ, Guangxi Key Lab Petrochem Resource Proc & Proc Int, Nanning 530004, Peoples R China;[6]Guangxi Univ, Sch Chem & Chem Engn, Nanning 530004, Peoples R China

年份：2024

卷号：101

期号：11

起止页码：4714

外文期刊名：JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION

收录：;WOS:【SCI-EXPANDED(收录号:WOS:001330120900001)】；

基金：The student data in 2016, 2017, and 2018 is from the course of "Engineering Thermodynamics", which was taught by X.X. when at Soochow University. This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21978079). Q. G. thanks the funding of General Education Reform Project of Shanghai University of Electric Power. W. T. thanks the funding of the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST (No. 2022QNRC001). All the authors thank three anonymous reviewers for their invaluable and extensive comments, which have improved the quality of the paper.

语种：英文

外文关键词：Upper-Division Undergraduate; Graduate Education/Research; Chemical Engineering; Physical Chemistry; Computer-BasedLearning; Inquiry-Based Leaning; Thermodynamics; Student-Centered Learning

摘要：Thermodynamic potentials, such as Helmholtz free energy and Gibbs free energy, are important concepts in thermodynamics. The precise definition of these potentials requires knowledge of statistical mechanics and Legendre transformation. It is hard to understand the underlying physics of thermodynamic potentials for undergraduates. Herein, we developed an alternative approach for introducing thermodynamic potentials to undergraduates. The approach starts from fundamental laws and concepts in thermodynamics with the introduction of Legendre transformation in a comprehensible way. Thermodynamic potentials are explained for their underlying physics in a why-how-what way by means of MATLAB software. All of the knowledge used is still in the learning scope of undergraduates. Research frontier about classical density-functional theory in modern thermodynamics is introduced naturally for students. The pedagogical approach has been taught in China in full English language for students from worldwide regions in three courses in terms of thermodynamics. Students demonstrated the ability to understand fundamental concepts in thermodynamics after they learned the approach.