
The internal energy of a thermodynamic system is the energy of the system as a state function, measured as the quantity of energy necessary to bring the system from its standard internal state to its present internal state of interest, accounting for the gains and losses of energy due to changes in its internal state, including such quantities as magnetization. It excludes the kinetic energy of motion of the system as a whole and the potential energy of position of the system as a whole, with respect to its surroundings and external force fields. It includes the thermal energy, i.e., the constituent particles' kinetic energies of motion relative to the motion of the system as a whole. Without a thermodynamic process, the internal energy of an isolated system cannot change, as expressed in the law of conservation of energy, a foundation of the first law of thermodynamics. The notion has been introduced to describe the systems characterized by temperature variations, temperature being added to the set of state parameters, the position variables known in mechanics (and their conjugated generalized force parameters), in a similar way to potential energy of the conservative fields of force, gravitational and electrostatic. Its author is Rudolf Clausius. Without transfer of matter, internal energy changes equal the algebraic sum of the heat transferred and the work done. In systems without temperature changes, internal energy changes equal the work done by/on the system.
Internal energy | |
---|---|
Common symbols | U |
SI unit | J |
In SI base units | m2⋅kg/s2 |
Derivations from other quantities |
The internal energy cannot be measured absolutely. Thermodynamics concerns changes in the internal energy, not its absolute value. The processes that change the internal energy are transfers, into or out of the system, of substance, or of energy, as heat, or by thermodynamic work. These processes are measured by changes in the system's properties, such as temperature, entropy, volume, electric polarization, and molar constitution. The internal energy depends only on the internal state of the system and not on the particular choice from many possible processes by which energy may pass into or out of the system. It is a state variable, a thermodynamic potential, and an extensive property.
Thermodynamics defines internal energy macroscopically, for the body as a whole. In statistical mechanics, the internal energy of a body can be analyzed microscopically in terms of the kinetic energies of microscopic motion of the system's particles from translations, rotations, and vibrations, and of the potential energies associated with microscopic forces, including chemical bonds.
The unit of energy in the International System of Units (SI) is the joule (J). The internal energy relative to the mass with unit J/kg is the specific internal energy. The corresponding quantity relative to the amount of substance with unit J/mol is the molar internal energy.
Cardinal functions
The internal energy of a system depends on its entropy S, its volume V and its number of massive particles: U(S,V,{Nj}). It expresses the thermodynamics of a system in the energy representation. As a function of state, its arguments are exclusively extensive variables of state. Alongside the internal energy, the other cardinal function of state of a thermodynamic system is its entropy, as a function, S(U,V,{Nj}), of the same list of extensive variables of state, except that the entropy, S, is replaced in the list by the internal energy, U. It expresses the entropy representation.
Each cardinal function is a monotonic function of each of its natural or canonical variables. Each provides its characteristic or fundamental equation, for example U = U(S,V,{Nj}), that by itself contains all thermodynamic information about the system. The fundamental equations for the two cardinal functions can in principle be interconverted by solving, for example, U = U(S,V,{Nj}) for S, to get S = S(U,V,{Nj}).
In contrast, Legendre transformations are necessary to derive fundamental equations for other thermodynamic potentials and Massieu functions. The entropy as a function only of extensive state variables is the one and only cardinal function of state for the generation of Massieu functions. It is not itself customarily designated a 'Massieu function', though rationally it might be thought of as such, corresponding to the term 'thermodynamic potential', which includes the internal energy.
For real and practical systems, explicit expressions of the fundamental equations are almost always unavailable, but the functional relations exist in principle. Formal, in principle, manipulations of them are valuable for the understanding of thermodynamics.
Description and definition
The internal energy of a given state of the system is determined relative to that of a standard state of the system, by adding up the macroscopic transfers of energy that accompany a change of state from the reference state to the given state:
where denotes the difference between the internal energy of the given state and that of the reference state, and the
are the various energies transferred to the system in the steps from the reference state to the given state. It is the energy needed to create the given state of the system from the reference state. From a non-relativistic microscopic point of view, it may be divided into microscopic potential energy,
, and microscopic kinetic energy,
, components:
The microscopic kinetic energy of a system arises as the sum of the motions of all the system's particles with respect to the center-of-mass frame, whether it be the motion of atoms, molecules, atomic nuclei, electrons, or other particles. The microscopic potential energy algebraic summative components are those of the chemical and nuclear particle bonds, and the physical force fields within the system, such as due to internal induced electric or magnetic dipole moment, as well as the energy of deformation of solids (stress-strain). Usually, the split into microscopic kinetic and potential energies is outside the scope of macroscopic thermodynamics.
Internal energy does not include the energy due to motion or location of a system as a whole. That is to say, it excludes any kinetic or potential energy the body may have because of its motion or location in external gravitational, electrostatic, or electromagnetic fields. It does, however, include the contribution of such a field to the energy due to the coupling of the internal degrees of freedom of the system with the field. In such a case, the field is included in the thermodynamic description of the object in the form of an additional external parameter.
For practical considerations in thermodynamics or engineering, it is rarely necessary, convenient, nor even possible, to consider all energies belonging to the total intrinsic energy of a sample system, such as the energy given by the equivalence of mass. Typically, descriptions only include components relevant to the system under study. Indeed, in most systems under consideration, especially through thermodynamics, it is impossible to calculate the total internal energy. Therefore, a convenient null reference point may be chosen for the internal energy.
The internal energy is an extensive property: it depends on the size of the system, or on the amount of substance it contains.
At any temperature greater than absolute zero, microscopic potential energy and kinetic energy are constantly converted into one another, but the sum remains constant in an isolated system (cf. table). In the classical picture of thermodynamics, kinetic energy vanishes at zero temperature and the internal energy is purely potential energy. However, quantum mechanics has demonstrated that even at zero temperature particles maintain a residual energy of motion, the zero point energy. A system at absolute zero is merely in its quantum-mechanical ground state, the lowest energy state available. At absolute zero a system of given composition has attained its minimum attainable entropy.
The microscopic kinetic energy portion of the internal energy gives rise to the temperature of the system. Statistical mechanics relates the pseudo-random kinetic energy of individual particles to the mean kinetic energy of the entire ensemble of particles comprising a system. Furthermore, it relates the mean microscopic kinetic energy to the macroscopically observed empirical property that is expressed as temperature of the system. While temperature is an intensive measure, this energy expresses the concept as an extensive property of the system, often referred to as the thermal energy, The scaling property between temperature and thermal energy is the entropy change of the system.
Statistical mechanics considers any system to be statistically distributed across an ensemble of microstates. In a system that is in thermodynamic contact equilibrium with a heat reservoir, each microstate has an energy
and is associated with a probability
. The internal energy is the mean value of the system's total energy, i.e., the sum of all microstate energies, each weighted by its probability of occurrence:
This is the statistical expression of the law of conservation of energy.
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Internal energy changes
Thermodynamics is chiefly concerned with the changes in internal energy .
For a closed system, with mass transfer excluded, the changes in internal energy are due to heat transfer and due to thermodynamic work
done by the system on its surroundings. Accordingly, the internal energy change
for a process may be written
When a closed system receives energy as heat, this energy increases the internal energy. It is distributed between microscopic kinetic and microscopic potential energies. In general, thermodynamics does not trace this distribution. In an ideal gas all of the extra energy results in a temperature increase, as it is stored solely as microscopic kinetic energy; such heating is said to be sensible.
A second kind of mechanism of change in the internal energy of a closed system changed is in its doing of work on its surroundings. Such work may be simply mechanical, as when the system expands to drive a piston, or, for example, when the system changes its electric polarization so as to drive a change in the electric field in the surroundings.
If the system is not closed, the third mechanism that can increase the internal energy is transfer of substance into the system. This increase, cannot be split into heat and work components. If the system is so set up physically that heat transfer and work that it does are by pathways separate from and independent of matter transfer, then the transfers of energy add to change the internal energy:
If a system undergoes certain phase transformations while being heated, such as melting and vaporization, it may be observed that the temperature of the system does not change until the entire sample has completed the transformation. The energy introduced into the system while the temperature does not change is called latent energy or latent heat, in contrast to sensible heat, which is associated with temperature change.
Internal energy of the ideal gas
Thermodynamics often uses the concept of the ideal gas for teaching purposes, and as an approximation for working systems. The ideal gas consists of particles considered as point objects that interact only by elastic collisions and fill a volume such that their mean free path between collisions is much larger than their diameter. Such systems approximate monatomic gases such as helium and other noble gases. For an ideal gas the kinetic energy consists only of the translational energy of the individual atoms. Monatomic particles do not possess rotational or vibrational degrees of freedom, and are not electronically excited to higher energies except at very high temperatures.
Therefore, the internal energy of an ideal gas depends solely on its temperature (and the number of gas particles): . It is not dependent on other thermodynamic quantities such as pressure or density.
The internal energy of an ideal gas is proportional to its amount of substance (number of moles) and to its temperature
where is the isochoric (at constant volume) molar heat capacity of the gas;
is constant for an ideal gas. The internal energy of any gas (ideal or not) may be written as a function of the three extensive properties
,
,
(entropy, volume, number of moles). In case of the ideal gas it is in the following way
where is an arbitrary positive constant and where
is the universal gas constant. It is easily seen that
is a linearly homogeneous function of the three variables (that is, it is extensive in these variables), and that it is weakly convex. Knowing temperature and pressure to be the derivatives
the ideal gas law
immediately follows as below:
Internal energy of a closed thermodynamic system
The above summation of all components of change in internal energy assumes that a positive energy denotes heat added to the system or the negative of work done by the system on its surroundings.
This relationship may be expressed in infinitesimal terms using the differentials of each term, though only the internal energy is an exact differential.: 33 For a closed system, with transfers only as heat and work, the change in the internal energy is
expressing the first law of thermodynamics. It may be expressed in terms of other thermodynamic parameters. Each term is composed of an intensive variable (a generalized force) and its conjugate infinitesimal extensive variable (a generalized displacement).
For example, the mechanical work done by the system may be related to the pressure and volume change
. The pressure is the intensive generalized force, while the volume change is the extensive generalized displacement:
This defines the direction of work, , to be energy transfer from the working system to the surroundings, indicated by a positive term. Taking the direction of heat transfer
to be into the working fluid and assuming a reversible process, the heat is
where denotes the temperature, and
denotes the entropy.
The change in internal energy becomes
Changes due to temperature and volume
The expression relating changes in internal energy to changes in temperature and volume is
1 |
This is useful if the equation of state is known.
In case of an ideal gas, we can derive that , i.e. the internal energy of an ideal gas can be written as a function that depends only on the temperature.
The expression relating changes in internal energy to changes in temperature and volume is
The equation of state is the ideal gas law
Solve for pressure:
Substitute in to internal energy expression:
Take the derivative of pressure with respect to temperature:
Replace:
And simplify:
To express in terms of
and
, the term
is substituted in the fundamental thermodynamic relation
This gives
The term is the heat capacity at constant volume
The partial derivative of with respect to
can be evaluated if the equation of state is known. From the fundamental thermodynamic relation, it follows that the differential of the Helmholtz free energy
is given by
The symmetry of second derivatives of with respect to
and
yields the Maxwell relation:
This gives the expression above.
Changes due to temperature and pressure
When considering fluids or solids, an expression in terms of the temperature and pressure is usually more useful:
where it is assumed that the heat capacity at constant pressure is related to the heat capacity at constant volume according to
The partial derivative of the pressure with respect to temperature at constant volume can be expressed in terms of the coefficient of thermal expansion
and the isothermal compressibility
by writing
2 |
and equating dV to zero and solving for the ratio dP/dT. This gives
3 |
Changes due to volume at constant temperature
The internal pressure is defined as a partial derivative of the internal energy with respect to the volume at constant temperature:
Internal energy of multi-component systems
This section does not cite any sources.(November 2015) |
In addition to including the entropy and volume
terms in the internal energy, a system is often described also in terms of the number of particles or chemical species it contains:
where are the molar amounts of constituents of type
in the system. The internal energy is an extensive function of the extensive variables
,
, and the amounts
, the internal energy may be written as a linearly homogeneous function of first degree:
where is a factor describing the growth of the system. The differential internal energy may be written as
which shows (or defines) temperature to be the partial derivative of
with respect to entropy
and pressure
to be the negative of the similar derivative with respect to volume
,
and where the coefficients are the chemical potentials for the components of type
in the system. The chemical potentials are defined as the partial derivatives of the internal energy with respect to the variations in composition:
As conjugate variables to the composition , the chemical potentials are intensive properties, intrinsically characteristic of the qualitative nature of the system, and not proportional to its extent. Under conditions of constant
and
, because of the extensive nature of
and its independent variables, using Euler's homogeneous function theorem, the differential
may be integrated and yields an expression for the internal energy:
The sum over the composition of the system is the Gibbs free energy:
that arises from changing the composition of the system at constant temperature and pressure. For a single component system, the chemical potential equals the Gibbs energy per amount of substance, i.e. particles or moles according to the original definition of the unit for .
Internal energy in an elastic medium
For an elastic medium the potential energy component of the internal energy has an elastic nature expressed in terms of the stress and strain
involved in elastic processes. In Einstein notation for tensors, with summation over repeated indices, for unit volume, the infinitesimal statement is
Euler's theorem yields for the internal energy:
For a linearly elastic material, the stress is related to the strain by
where the are the components of the 4th-rank elastic constant tensor of the medium.
Elastic deformations, such as sound, passing through a body, or other forms of macroscopic internal agitation or turbulent motion create states when the system is not in thermodynamic equilibrium. While such energies of motion continue, they contribute to the total energy of the system; thermodynamic internal energy pertains only when such motions have ceased.
History
James Joule studied the relationship between heat, work, and temperature. He observed that friction in a liquid, such as caused by its agitation with work by a paddle wheel, caused an increase in its temperature, which he described as producing a quantity of heat. Expressed in modern units, he found that c. 4186 joules of energy were needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius.
Notes
- This article uses the sign convention of the mechanical work as often defined in engineering, which is different from the convention used in physics and chemistry; in engineering, work performed by the system against the environment, e.g., a system expansion, is taken to be positive, while in physics and chemistry, it is taken to be negative.
See also
- Calorimetry
- Enthalpy
- Exergy
- Thermodynamic equations
- Thermodynamic potentials
- Gibbs free energy
- Helmholtz free energy
References
- Crawford, F. H. (1963), pp. 106–107.
- Haase, R. (1971), pp. 24–28.
- E.I. Franses (2014), "Internal energy, the First Law, heat, conservation of total energy, mass and energy balances, enthalpy, and heat capacities", Thermodynamics with Chemical Engineering Applications, Cambridge University Press, pp. 70–102, doi:10.1017/cbo9781107707009.006, ISBN 978-1-107-06975-6, retrieved 2024-09-08
- Born, M. (1949), Appendix 8, pp. 146–149.
- "Thermodynamics - Heat Capacity, Internal Energy | Britannica". www.britannica.com. 2024-07-29. Retrieved 2024-09-08.
- International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. Physical and Biophysical Chemistry Division (2007). Quantities, units, and symbols in physical chemistry (PDF) (3rd ed.). Cambridge, UK: RSC Pub. ISBN 978-1-84755-788-9. OCLC 232639283.
- Tschoegl, N.W. (2000), p. 17.
- Callen, H.B. (1960/1985), Chapter 5.
- Münster, A. (1970), p. 6.
- Münster, A. (1970), Chapter 3.
- Bailyn, M. (1994), pp. 206–209.
- I. Klotz, R. Rosenberg, Chemical Thermodynamics - Basic Concepts and Methods, 7th ed., Wiley (2008), p.39
- Leland, T. W. Jr., Mansoori, G. A., pp. 15, 16.
- Thermal energy – Hyperphysics.
- Grubbström, Robert W. (1985). "Towards a Generalized Exergy Concept". In van Gool, W.; Bruggink, J.J.C. (eds.). Energy and time in the economic and physical sciences. North-Holland. pp. 41–56. ISBN 978-0444877482.
- Adkins, C. J. (Clement John) (1983). Equilibrium thermodynamics (3rd ed.). Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-25445-0. OCLC 9132054.
- Landau, Lev Davidovich; Lifshit︠s︡, Evgeniĭ Mikhaĭlovich; Pitaevskiĭ, Lev Petrovich; Sykes, John Bradbury; Kearsley, M. J. (1980). Statistical physics. Oxford. p. 70. ISBN 0-08-023039-3. OCLC 3932994.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Landau & Lifshitz 1986, p. 8.
- Joule, J.P. (1850). "On the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 140: 61–82. doi:10.1098/rstl.1850.0004. S2CID 186209447.
Bibliography of cited references
- Adkins, C. J. (1968/1975). Equilibrium Thermodynamics, second edition, McGraw-Hill, London, ISBN 0-07-084057-1.
- Bailyn, M. (1994). A Survey of Thermodynamics, American Institute of Physics Press, New York, ISBN 0-88318-797-3.
- Born, M. (1949). Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance, Oxford University Press, London.
- Callen, H. B. (1960/1985), Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics, (first edition 1960), second edition 1985, John Wiley & Sons, New York, ISBN 0-471-86256-8.
- Crawford, F. H. (1963). Heat, Thermodynamics, and Statistical Physics, Rupert Hart-Davis, London, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.
- Haase, R. (1971). Survey of Fundamental Laws, chapter 1 of Thermodynamics, pages 1–97 of volume 1, ed. W. Jost, of Physical Chemistry. An Advanced Treatise, ed. H. Eyring, D. Henderson, W. Jost, Academic Press, New York, lcn 73–117081.
- Thomas W. Leland Jr., G. A. Mansoori (ed.), Basic Principles of Classical and Statistical Thermodynamics (PDF).
- Landau, L. D.; Lifshitz, E. M. (1986). Theory of Elasticity (Course of Theoretical Physics Volume 7). (Translated from Russian by J. B. Sykes and W. H. Reid) (Third ed.). Boston, MA: Butterworth Heinemann. ISBN 978-0-7506-2633-0.
- Münster, A. (1970), Classical Thermodynamics, translated by E. S. Halberstadt, Wiley–Interscience, London, ISBN 0-471-62430-6.
- Planck, M., (1923/1927). Treatise on Thermodynamics, translated by A. Ogg, third English edition, Longmans, Green and Co., London.
- Tschoegl, N. W. (2000). Fundamentals of Equilibrium and Steady-State Thermodynamics, Elsevier, Amsterdam, ISBN 0-444-50426-5.
Bibliography
- Alberty, R. A. (2001). "Use of Legendre transforms in chemical thermodynamics" (PDF). Pure Appl. Chem. 73 (8): 1349–1380. doi:10.1351/pac200173081349. S2CID 98264934.
- Lewis, Gilbert Newton; Randall, Merle: Revised by Pitzer, Kenneth S. & Brewer, Leo (1961). Thermodynamics (2nd ed.). New York, NY USA: McGraw-Hill Book Co. ISBN 978-0-07-113809-3.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
The internal energy of a thermodynamic system is the energy of the system as a state function measured as the quantity of energy necessary to bring the system from its standard internal state to its present internal state of interest accounting for the gains and losses of energy due to changes in its internal state including such quantities as magnetization It excludes the kinetic energy of motion of the system as a whole and the potential energy of position of the system as a whole with respect to its surroundings and external force fields It includes the thermal energy i e the constituent particles kinetic energies of motion relative to the motion of the system as a whole Without a thermodynamic process the internal energy of an isolated system cannot change as expressed in the law of conservation of energy a foundation of the first law of thermodynamics The notion has been introduced to describe the systems characterized by temperature variations temperature being added to the set of state parameters the position variables known in mechanics and their conjugated generalized force parameters in a similar way to potential energy of the conservative fields of force gravitational and electrostatic Its author is Rudolf Clausius Without transfer of matter internal energy changes equal the algebraic sum of the heat transferred and the work done In systems without temperature changes internal energy changes equal the work done by on the system Internal energyCommon symbolsUSI unitJIn SI base unitsm2 kg s2Derivations from other quantitiesDU ipiEi displaystyle Delta U sum i p i E i DU nCVDT displaystyle Delta U nC V Delta T The internal energy cannot be measured absolutely Thermodynamics concerns changes in the internal energy not its absolute value The processes that change the internal energy are transfers into or out of the system of substance or of energy as heat or by thermodynamic work These processes are measured by changes in the system s properties such as temperature entropy volume electric polarization and molar constitution The internal energy depends only on the internal state of the system and not on the particular choice from many possible processes by which energy may pass into or out of the system It is a state variable a thermodynamic potential and an extensive property Thermodynamics defines internal energy macroscopically for the body as a whole In statistical mechanics the internal energy of a body can be analyzed microscopically in terms of the kinetic energies of microscopic motion of the system s particles from translations rotations and vibrations and of the potential energies associated with microscopic forces including chemical bonds The unit of energy in the International System of Units SI is the joule J The internal energy relative to the mass with unit J kg is the specific internal energy The corresponding quantity relative to the amount of substance with unit J mol is the molar internal energy Cardinal functionsThe internal energy of a system depends on its entropy S its volume V and its number of massive particles U S V Nj It expresses the thermodynamics of a system in the energy representation As a function of state its arguments are exclusively extensive variables of state Alongside the internal energy the other cardinal function of state of a thermodynamic system is its entropy as a function S U V Nj of the same list of extensive variables of state except that the entropy S is replaced in the list by the internal energy U It expresses the entropy representation Each cardinal function is a monotonic function of each of its natural or canonical variables Each provides its characteristic or fundamental equation for example U U S V Nj that by itself contains all thermodynamic information about the system The fundamental equations for the two cardinal functions can in principle be interconverted by solving for example U U S V Nj for S to get S S U V Nj In contrast Legendre transformations are necessary to derive fundamental equations for other thermodynamic potentials and Massieu functions The entropy as a function only of extensive state variables is the one and only cardinal function of state for the generation of Massieu functions It is not itself customarily designated a Massieu function though rationally it might be thought of as such corresponding to the term thermodynamic potential which includes the internal energy For real and practical systems explicit expressions of the fundamental equations are almost always unavailable but the functional relations exist in principle Formal in principle manipulations of them are valuable for the understanding of thermodynamics Description and definitionThe internal energy U displaystyle U of a given state of the system is determined relative to that of a standard state of the system by adding up the macroscopic transfers of energy that accompany a change of state from the reference state to the given state DU iEi displaystyle Delta U sum i E i where DU displaystyle Delta U denotes the difference between the internal energy of the given state and that of the reference state and the Ei displaystyle E i are the various energies transferred to the system in the steps from the reference state to the given state It is the energy needed to create the given state of the system from the reference state From a non relativistic microscopic point of view it may be divided into microscopic potential energy Umicro pot displaystyle U text micro pot and microscopic kinetic energy Umicro kin displaystyle U text micro kin components U Umicro pot Umicro kin displaystyle U U text micro pot U text micro kin The microscopic kinetic energy of a system arises as the sum of the motions of all the system s particles with respect to the center of mass frame whether it be the motion of atoms molecules atomic nuclei electrons or other particles The microscopic potential energy algebraic summative components are those of the chemical and nuclear particle bonds and the physical force fields within the system such as due to internal induced electric or magnetic dipole moment as well as the energy of deformation of solids stress strain Usually the split into microscopic kinetic and potential energies is outside the scope of macroscopic thermodynamics Internal energy does not include the energy due to motion or location of a system as a whole That is to say it excludes any kinetic or potential energy the body may have because of its motion or location in external gravitational electrostatic or electromagnetic fields It does however include the contribution of such a field to the energy due to the coupling of the internal degrees of freedom of the system with the field In such a case the field is included in the thermodynamic description of the object in the form of an additional external parameter For practical considerations in thermodynamics or engineering it is rarely necessary convenient nor even possible to consider all energies belonging to the total intrinsic energy of a sample system such as the energy given by the equivalence of mass Typically descriptions only include components relevant to the system under study Indeed in most systems under consideration especially through thermodynamics it is impossible to calculate the total internal energy Therefore a convenient null reference point may be chosen for the internal energy The internal energy is an extensive property it depends on the size of the system or on the amount of substance it contains At any temperature greater than absolute zero microscopic potential energy and kinetic energy are constantly converted into one another but the sum remains constant in an isolated system cf table In the classical picture of thermodynamics kinetic energy vanishes at zero temperature and the internal energy is purely potential energy However quantum mechanics has demonstrated that even at zero temperature particles maintain a residual energy of motion the zero point energy A system at absolute zero is merely in its quantum mechanical ground state the lowest energy state available At absolute zero a system of given composition has attained its minimum attainable entropy The microscopic kinetic energy portion of the internal energy gives rise to the temperature of the system Statistical mechanics relates the pseudo random kinetic energy of individual particles to the mean kinetic energy of the entire ensemble of particles comprising a system Furthermore it relates the mean microscopic kinetic energy to the macroscopically observed empirical property that is expressed as temperature of the system While temperature is an intensive measure this energy expresses the concept as an extensive property of the system often referred to as the thermal energy The scaling property between temperature and thermal energy is the entropy change of the system Statistical mechanics considers any system to be statistically distributed across an ensemble of N displaystyle N microstates In a system that is in thermodynamic contact equilibrium with a heat reservoir each microstate has an energy Ei displaystyle E i and is associated with a probability pi displaystyle p i The internal energy is the mean value of the system s total energy i e the sum of all microstate energies each weighted by its probability of occurrence U i 1NpiEi displaystyle U sum i 1 N p i E i This is the statistical expression of the law of conservation of energy Interactions of thermodynamic systems Type of system Mass flow Work HeatOpen Y Y YClosed N Y YThermally isolated N Y NMechanically isolated N N YIsolated N N NInternal energy changes Thermodynamics is chiefly concerned with the changes in internal energy DU displaystyle Delta U For a closed system with mass transfer excluded the changes in internal energy are due to heat transfer Q displaystyle Q and due to thermodynamic work W displaystyle W done by the system on its surroundings Accordingly the internal energy change DU displaystyle Delta U for a process may be written DU Q W closed system no transfer of substance displaystyle Delta U Q W quad text closed system no transfer of substance When a closed system receives energy as heat this energy increases the internal energy It is distributed between microscopic kinetic and microscopic potential energies In general thermodynamics does not trace this distribution In an ideal gas all of the extra energy results in a temperature increase as it is stored solely as microscopic kinetic energy such heating is said to be sensible A second kind of mechanism of change in the internal energy of a closed system changed is in its doing of work on its surroundings Such work may be simply mechanical as when the system expands to drive a piston or for example when the system changes its electric polarization so as to drive a change in the electric field in the surroundings If the system is not closed the third mechanism that can increase the internal energy is transfer of substance into the system This increase DUmatter displaystyle Delta U mathrm matter cannot be split into heat and work components If the system is so set up physically that heat transfer and work that it does are by pathways separate from and independent of matter transfer then the transfers of energy add to change the internal energy DU Q W DUmatter matter transfer pathway separate from heat and work transfer pathways displaystyle Delta U Q W Delta U text matter quad text matter transfer pathway separate from heat and work transfer pathways If a system undergoes certain phase transformations while being heated such as melting and vaporization it may be observed that the temperature of the system does not change until the entire sample has completed the transformation The energy introduced into the system while the temperature does not change is called latent energy or latent heat in contrast to sensible heat which is associated with temperature change Internal energy of the ideal gasThermodynamics often uses the concept of the ideal gas for teaching purposes and as an approximation for working systems The ideal gas consists of particles considered as point objects that interact only by elastic collisions and fill a volume such that their mean free path between collisions is much larger than their diameter Such systems approximate monatomic gases such as helium and other noble gases For an ideal gas the kinetic energy consists only of the translational energy of the individual atoms Monatomic particles do not possess rotational or vibrational degrees of freedom and are not electronically excited to higher energies except at very high temperatures Therefore the internal energy of an ideal gas depends solely on its temperature and the number of gas particles U U N T displaystyle U U N T It is not dependent on other thermodynamic quantities such as pressure or density The internal energy of an ideal gas is proportional to its amount of substance number of moles N displaystyle N and to its temperature T displaystyle T U cVNT displaystyle U c V NT where cV displaystyle c V is the isochoric at constant volume molar heat capacity of the gas cV displaystyle c V is constant for an ideal gas The internal energy of any gas ideal or not may be written as a function of the three extensive properties S displaystyle S V displaystyle V N displaystyle N entropy volume number of moles In case of the ideal gas it is in the following way U S V N const eScVNV RcVNR cVcV displaystyle U S V N mathrm const cdot e frac S c V N V frac R c V N frac R c V c V where const displaystyle mathrm const is an arbitrary positive constant and where R displaystyle R is the universal gas constant It is easily seen that U displaystyle U is a linearly homogeneous function of the three variables that is it is extensive in these variables and that it is weakly convex Knowing temperature and pressure to be the derivatives T U S displaystyle T frac partial U partial S P U V displaystyle P frac partial U partial V the ideal gas law PV NRT displaystyle PV NRT immediately follows as below T U S UcVN displaystyle T frac partial U partial S frac U c V N P U V URcVV displaystyle P frac partial U partial V U frac R c V V PT URcVVUcVN NRV displaystyle frac P T frac frac UR c V V frac U c V N frac NR V PV NRT displaystyle PV NRT Internal energy of a closed thermodynamic systemThe above summation of all components of change in internal energy assumes that a positive energy denotes heat added to the system or the negative of work done by the system on its surroundings This relationship may be expressed in infinitesimal terms using the differentials of each term though only the internal energy is an exact differential 33 For a closed system with transfers only as heat and work the change in the internal energy is dU dQ dW displaystyle mathrm d U delta Q delta W expressing the first law of thermodynamics It may be expressed in terms of other thermodynamic parameters Each term is composed of an intensive variable a generalized force and its conjugate infinitesimal extensive variable a generalized displacement For example the mechanical work done by the system may be related to the pressure P displaystyle P and volume change dV displaystyle mathrm d V The pressure is the intensive generalized force while the volume change is the extensive generalized displacement dW PdV displaystyle delta W P mathrm d V This defines the direction of work W displaystyle W to be energy transfer from the working system to the surroundings indicated by a positive term Taking the direction of heat transfer Q displaystyle Q to be into the working fluid and assuming a reversible process the heat is dQ TdS displaystyle delta Q T mathrm d S where T displaystyle T denotes the temperature and S displaystyle S denotes the entropy The change in internal energy becomes dU TdS PdV displaystyle mathrm d U T mathrm d S P mathrm d V Changes due to temperature and volume The expression relating changes in internal energy to changes in temperature and volume is dU CVdT T P T V P dV displaystyle mathrm d U C V mathrm d T left T left frac partial P partial T right V P right mathrm d V 1 This is useful if the equation of state is known In case of an ideal gas we can derive that dU CVdT displaystyle dU C V dT i e the internal energy of an ideal gas can be written as a function that depends only on the temperature Proof of pressure independence for an ideal gasThe expression relating changes in internal energy to changes in temperature and volume is dU CVdT T P T V P dV displaystyle mathrm d U C V mathrm d T left T left frac partial P partial T right V P right mathrm d V The equation of state is the ideal gas law PV nRT displaystyle PV nRT Solve for pressure P nRTV displaystyle P frac nRT V Substitute in to internal energy expression dU CVdT T P T V nRTV dV displaystyle dU C V mathrm d T left T left frac partial P partial T right V frac nRT V right mathrm d V Take the derivative of pressure with respect to temperature P T V nRV displaystyle left frac partial P partial T right V frac nR V Replace dU CVdT nRTV nRTV dV displaystyle dU C V mathrm d T left frac nRT V frac nRT V right mathrm d V And simplify dU CVdT displaystyle mathrm d U C V mathrm d T Derivation of dU in terms of dT and dVTo express dU displaystyle mathrm d U in terms of dT displaystyle mathrm d T and dV displaystyle mathrm d V the term dS S T VdT S V TdV displaystyle mathrm d S left frac partial S partial T right V mathrm d T left frac partial S partial V right T mathrm d V is substituted in the fundamental thermodynamic relation dU TdS PdV displaystyle mathrm d U T mathrm d S P mathrm d V This gives dU T S T VdT T S V T P dV displaystyle dU T left frac partial S partial T right V dT left T left frac partial S partial V right T P right dV The term T S T V displaystyle T left frac partial S partial T right V is the heat capacity at constant volume CV displaystyle C V The partial derivative of S displaystyle S with respect to V displaystyle V can be evaluated if the equation of state is known From the fundamental thermodynamic relation it follows that the differential of the Helmholtz free energy A displaystyle A is given by dA SdT PdV displaystyle dA S dT P dV The symmetry of second derivatives of A displaystyle A with respect to T displaystyle T and V displaystyle V yields the Maxwell relation S V T P T V displaystyle left frac partial S partial V right T left frac partial P partial T right V This gives the expression above Changes due to temperature and pressure When considering fluids or solids an expression in terms of the temperature and pressure is usually more useful d U CP aPV d T bTP aT Vd P displaystyle operatorname d U left C P alpha PV right operatorname d T left beta T P alpha T right V operatorname d P where it is assumed that the heat capacity at constant pressure is related to the heat capacity at constant volume according to CP CV VTa2bT displaystyle C P C V VT frac alpha 2 beta T Derivation of dU in terms of dT and dPThe partial derivative of the pressure with respect to temperature at constant volume can be expressed in terms of the coefficient of thermal expansion a 1V V T P displaystyle alpha equiv frac 1 V left frac partial V partial T right P and the isothermal compressibility bT 1V V P T displaystyle beta T equiv frac 1 V left frac partial V partial P right T by writing dV V p TdP V T PdT V adT bTdP dV left frac partial V partial p right T dP left frac partial V partial T right P dT V left alpha dT beta T dP right 2 and equating dV to zero and solving for the ratio dP dT This gives P T V V T P V P T abT left frac partial P partial T right V frac left frac partial V partial T right P left frac partial V partial P right T frac alpha beta T 3 Substituting 2 and 3 in 1 gives the above expression Changes due to volume at constant temperature The internal pressure is defined as a partial derivative of the internal energy with respect to the volume at constant temperature pT U V T displaystyle pi T left frac partial U partial V right T Internal energy of multi component systemsThis section does not cite any sources Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed November 2015 Learn how and when to remove this message In addition to including the entropy S displaystyle S and volume V displaystyle V terms in the internal energy a system is often described also in terms of the number of particles or chemical species it contains U U S V N1 Nn displaystyle U U S V N 1 ldots N n where Nj displaystyle N j are the molar amounts of constituents of type j displaystyle j in the system The internal energy is an extensive function of the extensive variables S displaystyle S V displaystyle V and the amounts Nj displaystyle N j the internal energy may be written as a linearly homogeneous function of first degree U aS aV aN1 aN2 aU S V N1 N2 displaystyle U alpha S alpha V alpha N 1 alpha N 2 ldots alpha U S V N 1 N 2 ldots where a displaystyle alpha is a factor describing the growth of the system The differential internal energy may be written as dU U SdS U VdV i U NidNi TdS PdV imidNi displaystyle mathrm d U frac partial U partial S mathrm d S frac partial U partial V mathrm d V sum i frac partial U partial N i mathrm d N i T mathrm d S P mathrm d V sum i mu i mathrm d N i which shows or defines temperature T displaystyle T to be the partial derivative of U displaystyle U with respect to entropy S displaystyle S and pressure P displaystyle P to be the negative of the similar derivative with respect to volume V displaystyle V T U S displaystyle T frac partial U partial S P U V displaystyle P frac partial U partial V and where the coefficients mi displaystyle mu i are the chemical potentials for the components of type i displaystyle i in the system The chemical potentials are defined as the partial derivatives of the internal energy with respect to the variations in composition mi U Ni S V Nj i displaystyle mu i left frac partial U partial N i right S V N j neq i As conjugate variables to the composition Nj displaystyle lbrace N j rbrace the chemical potentials are intensive properties intrinsically characteristic of the qualitative nature of the system and not proportional to its extent Under conditions of constant T displaystyle T and P displaystyle P because of the extensive nature of U displaystyle U and its independent variables using Euler s homogeneous function theorem the differential dU displaystyle mathrm d U may be integrated and yields an expression for the internal energy U TS PV imiNi displaystyle U TS PV sum i mu i N i The sum over the composition of the system is the Gibbs free energy G imiNi displaystyle G sum i mu i N i that arises from changing the composition of the system at constant temperature and pressure For a single component system the chemical potential equals the Gibbs energy per amount of substance i e particles or moles according to the original definition of the unit for Nj displaystyle lbrace N j rbrace Internal energy in an elastic mediumFor an elastic medium the potential energy component of the internal energy has an elastic nature expressed in terms of the stress sij displaystyle sigma ij and strain eij displaystyle varepsilon ij involved in elastic processes In Einstein notation for tensors with summation over repeated indices for unit volume the infinitesimal statement is dU TdS sijdeij displaystyle mathrm d U T mathrm d S sigma ij mathrm d varepsilon ij Euler s theorem yields for the internal energy U TS 12sijeij displaystyle U TS frac 1 2 sigma ij varepsilon ij For a linearly elastic material the stress is related to the strain by sij Cijklekl displaystyle sigma ij C ijkl varepsilon kl where the Cijkl displaystyle C ijkl are the components of the 4th rank elastic constant tensor of the medium Elastic deformations such as sound passing through a body or other forms of macroscopic internal agitation or turbulent motion create states when the system is not in thermodynamic equilibrium While such energies of motion continue they contribute to the total energy of the system thermodynamic internal energy pertains only when such motions have ceased HistoryJames Joule studied the relationship between heat work and temperature He observed that friction in a liquid such as caused by its agitation with work by a paddle wheel caused an increase in its temperature which he described as producing a quantity of heat Expressed in modern units he found that c 4186 joules of energy were needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius NotesThis article uses the sign convention of the mechanical work as often defined in engineering which is different from the convention used in physics and chemistry in engineering work performed by the system against the environment e g a system expansion is taken to be positive while in physics and chemistry it is taken to be negative See alsoCalorimetry Enthalpy Exergy Thermodynamic equations Thermodynamic potentials Gibbs free energy Helmholtz free energyReferencesCrawford F H 1963 pp 106 107 Haase R 1971 pp 24 28 E I Franses 2014 Internal energy the First Law heat conservation of total energy mass and energy balances enthalpy and heat capacities Thermodynamics with Chemical Engineering Applications Cambridge University Press pp 70 102 doi 10 1017 cbo9781107707009 006 ISBN 978 1 107 06975 6 retrieved 2024 09 08 Born M 1949 Appendix 8 pp 146 149 Thermodynamics Heat Capacity Internal Energy Britannica www britannica com 2024 07 29 Retrieved 2024 09 08 International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry Physical and Biophysical Chemistry Division 2007 Quantities units and symbols in physical chemistry PDF 3rd ed Cambridge UK RSC Pub ISBN 978 1 84755 788 9 OCLC 232639283 Tschoegl N W 2000 p 17 Callen H B 1960 1985 Chapter 5 Munster A 1970 p 6 Munster A 1970 Chapter 3 Bailyn M 1994 pp 206 209 I Klotz R Rosenberg Chemical Thermodynamics Basic Concepts and Methods 7th ed Wiley 2008 p 39 Leland T W Jr Mansoori G A pp 15 16 Thermal energy Hyperphysics Grubbstrom Robert W 1985 Towards a Generalized Exergy Concept In van Gool W Bruggink J J C eds Energy and time in the economic and physical sciences North Holland pp 41 56 ISBN 978 0444877482 Adkins C J Clement John 1983 Equilibrium thermodynamics 3rd ed Cambridge Cambridgeshire Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 25445 0 OCLC 9132054 Landau Lev Davidovich Lifshit s Evgeniĭ Mikhaĭlovich Pitaevskiĭ Lev Petrovich Sykes John Bradbury Kearsley M J 1980 Statistical physics Oxford p 70 ISBN 0 08 023039 3 OCLC 3932994 a href wiki Template Cite book title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link Landau amp Lifshitz 1986 p 8 Joule J P 1850 On the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 140 61 82 doi 10 1098 rstl 1850 0004 S2CID 186209447 Bibliography of cited references Adkins C J 1968 1975 Equilibrium Thermodynamics second edition McGraw Hill London ISBN 0 07 084057 1 Bailyn M 1994 A Survey of Thermodynamics American Institute of Physics Press New York ISBN 0 88318 797 3 Born M 1949 Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance Oxford University Press London Callen H B 1960 1985 Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics first edition 1960 second edition 1985 John Wiley amp Sons New York ISBN 0 471 86256 8 Crawford F H 1963 Heat Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics Rupert Hart Davis London Harcourt Brace amp World Inc Haase R 1971 Survey of Fundamental Laws chapter 1 of Thermodynamics pages 1 97 of volume 1 ed W Jost of Physical Chemistry An Advanced Treatise ed H Eyring D Henderson W Jost Academic Press New York lcn 73 117081 Thomas W Leland Jr G A Mansoori ed Basic Principles of Classical and Statistical Thermodynamics PDF Landau L D Lifshitz E M 1986 Theory of Elasticity Course of Theoretical Physics Volume 7 Translated from Russian by J B Sykes and W H Reid Third ed Boston MA Butterworth Heinemann ISBN 978 0 7506 2633 0 Munster A 1970 Classical Thermodynamics translated by E S Halberstadt Wiley Interscience London ISBN 0 471 62430 6 Planck M 1923 1927 Treatise on Thermodynamics translated by A Ogg third English edition Longmans Green and Co London Tschoegl N W 2000 Fundamentals of Equilibrium and Steady State Thermodynamics Elsevier Amsterdam ISBN 0 444 50426 5 BibliographyAlberty R A 2001 Use of Legendre transforms in chemical thermodynamics PDF Pure Appl Chem 73 8 1349 1380 doi 10 1351 pac200173081349 S2CID 98264934 Lewis Gilbert Newton Randall Merle Revised by Pitzer Kenneth S amp Brewer Leo 1961 Thermodynamics 2nd ed New York NY USA McGraw Hill Book Co ISBN 978 0 07 113809 3 a href wiki Template Cite book title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link