CH E243 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Heat Sink, Waste Heat, Inq Mobile
Document Summary
Satisfying the first law alone does not ensure the process will actually take place. Processes proceed in a certain direction and not in the reverse direction. The first law places no restriction on the direction of a process. The inadequacy of the 1st law identify whether a process can take place is remedied by introducing the second law of thermodynamics. The 2nd law asserts that energy has quality as well as quantity (1st law only deals with quantity of energy and transformations of energy, but disregards its quality) 2nd law is also used to determine the theoretical limits for the performance of commonly used engineering systems & predicting the degree of completion of chemical reactions. 2nd law defines perfection for thermodynamic processes can be used to quantify the level of perfection of a process, and point the direction to eliminate imperfections effectively.