Portal:Chemistry/Useful equations and links

Note: I am developing this page as a study aid for myself. I may later find a home for it at the chemistry portal or at Wikibooks or Wikiversity. Shalom (HelloPeace) 00:18, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Chemical elements edit

Ions edit

Gases edit

Main article: Gas laws

Ideal gas law edit

 
 ,

where

P is the pressure (SI unit: pascal)
V is the volume (SI unit: cubic metre)
n is the number of moles of gas
R is the ideal gas constant (SI: 8.3145 J/(mol K))
T is the thermodynamic temperature (SI unit: kelvin).

An equivalent formulation of this law is:

 

where

N is the number of molecules
k is the Boltzmann constant.

Graham's Law edit

 

where:

Rate1 is the rate of effusion of the first gas.
Rate2 is the rate of effusion for the second gas.
M1 is the molar mass of gas 1
M2 is the molar mass of gas 2.

Kinetic theory edit

 

Also, as Nm is the total mass of the gas, and mass divided by volume is density

 

where ρ is the density of the gas.

This result is interesting and significant, because it relates pressure, a macroscopic property, to the average (translational) kinetic energy per molecule (1/2mvrms2), which is a microscopic property.

The root mean square velocity of a molecule is

 

with v in m/s, T in kelvins, and R is the gas constant. The molar mass is given as kg/mol.

Dalton's Law edit

The pressure of a mixture of gases can be defined as the summation


        or       


where   represent the partial pressure of each component.

It is assumed that the gases do not react with each other.

 

where   the mole fraction of the i-the component in the total mixture of m components .

Van der Waals equation edit

 ,

where

p is the pressure of the fluid
V is the total volume of the container containing the fluid
a is a measure of the attraction between the particles  
b is the volume excluded by a mole of particles  
n is the number of moles
R is the gas constant,  

Solutions edit

The partition coefficient is the ratio of concentrations of un-ionized compound between the two solutions. To measure the partition coefficient of ionizable solutes, the pH of the aqueous phase is adjusted such that the predominant form of the compound is un-ionized. The logarithm of the ratio of the concentrations of the un-ionized solute in the solvents is called log P:

  •  


Equilibrium edit

Electrochemistry edit

Isomerism edit

Chirality edit

Analytical chemistry edit

Spectroscopy edit

Nuclear chemistry edit

Radiocarbon dating edit

The radioactive decay of carbon-14 follows an exponential decay. A quantity is said to be subject to exponential decay if it decreases at a rate proportional to its value. Symbolically, this can be expressed as the following differential equation, where N is the quantity and λ is a positive number called the decay constant:

 

The solution to this equation is:

 ,

where, for a given sample of carbonaceous matter:

  = number of radiocarbon atoms at  , i.e. the origin of the disintegration time,
  = number of radiocarbon atoms remaining after radioactive decay during the time  ,
 radiocarbon decay or disintegration constant.
Two related times can be defined:
  • mean- or average-life: mean or average time each radiocarbon atom spends in a given sample until it decays.
  • half-life: time lapsed for half the number of radiocarbon atoms in a given sample, to decay,

It can be shown that:

  =   = radiocarbon mean- or average-life = 8033 years (Libby value)
  =   = radiocarbon half-life = 5568 years (Libby value)

Notice that dates are customarily given in years BP which implies t(BP) = -t because the time arrow for dates runs in reverse direction from the time arrow for the corresponding ages. From these considerations and the above equation, it results:

For a raw radiocarbon date:

 

and for a raw radiocarbon age:

 

Thermodynamics edit

Laws of thermodynamics edit

Identities edit

Chemical thermodynamics studies PV work, which occurs when the volume of a fluid changes. PV work is represented by the following differential equation:

 

where:

  • W = work done on the system
  • P = external pressure
  • V = volume

Therefore, we have:

 

Clausius defined the change in entropy ds of a thermodynamic system, during a reversible process, as

 

where

δQ is a small amount of heat introduced to the system,
T is a constant absolute temperature

Note that the small amount   of energy transferred by heating is denoted by   rather than  , because Q is not a state function while the entropy is.

The function H was introduced by the Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in early 20th century in the following form:

 

where E represents the energy of the system. In the absence of an external field, the enthalpy may be defined, as it is generally known, by:

 

The internal energy is essentially defined by the first law of thermodynamics which states that energy is conserved:

 

where

ΔU is the change in internal energy of a system during a process.
Q is heat added to a system (measured in joules in SI); that is, a positive value for Q represents heat flow into a system while a negative value denotes heat flow out of a system.
W is the mechanical work done on a system (measured in joules in SI)
W' is energy added by all other processes

Although the internal energy is not exactly measurable, it may be expressed in terms of other similarly unmeasurable quantities. Using the above two equations in the first law of thermodynamics to construct one possible expression for the internal energy of a closed system gives:

 
  for constant temperature
 
 
 

and rearranging gives

 
 
 

which relates the electrical potential of a reaction to the equilibrium coefficient for that reaction.

where

ΔG = change in Gibbs free energy, ΔH = change in enthalpy, T = absolute temperature, ΔS = change in entropy, R = gas constant, ln = natural logarithm, K = equilibrium constant, Q = reaction quotient, n = number of electrons per mole product, F = Faraday constant (coulombs per mole), and ΔE = electrical potential of the reaction. Moreover, we also have:

 
 

which relates the equilibrium constant with Gibbs free energy.

The Helmholtz energy is defined as:

 [1]

From the first law of thermodynamics we have:

 

where   is the internal energy,   is the energy added by heating and   is the work done by the system. From the second law of thermodynamics, for a reversible process we may say that  . Differentiating the expression for    we have:

 
 
 

Maxwell relations edit

The four most common Maxwell relations are the equalities of the second derivatives of each of the four thermodynamic potentials, with respect to their thermal natural variable (temperature T  or entropy S ) and their mechanical natural variable (pressure p  or volume V ):

 
 
 
 

where the potentials as functions of their natural thermal and mechanical variables are:

  - The internal energy
  - The Enthalpy
  - The Helmholtz free energy
  - The Gibbs free energy

Boltzmann distribution edit

In physics, the Boltzmann distribution predicts the distribution function for the fractional number of particles Ni / N occupying a set of states i which each respectively possess energy Ei:

 

where   is the Boltzmann constant, T is temperature (assumed to be a sharply well-defined quantity),   is the degeneracy, or number of states having energy  , N is the total number of particles:

 

and Z(T) is called the partition function, which can be seen to be equal to

 

Chemical kinetics edit

Zero Order First Order Second Order n-th Order
Rate Law        
Integrated Rate Law        

[Except first order]

Units of Rate Constant          
Linear Plot to determine          

[Except first order]

Half-life        

[Except first order]

It can be shown that, for exponential decay, the half-life   obeys this relation:

 

where

The half-life is related to the mean lifetime τ by the following relation:

 

In short, the Arrhenius equation is an expression that shows the dependence of the rate constant k of chemical reactions on the temperature T (in Kelvin) and activation energy Ea, as shown below:[2]

 

where A is the pre-exponential factor or simply the prefactor and R is the gas constant.

Chromatography edit

The Van Deemter equation for the plate height (H) is:

 

Where

A is equal to the multiple paths taken by the chemical compound, in open tubular capillaries this term will be zero as there are no multiple paths. The multiple paths occur in packed columns where several routes through the column packing, which results in band spreading.

B/u is equal to the longitudinal diffusion of the particles of the compound.

Cu is equal to the equilibration point. In a column, there is an interaction between the mobile and stationary phases, Cu accounts for this.

Electronic transitions edit

 

Where

  is the wavelength of the light emitted in vacuum,
  is the Rydberg constant for hydrogen,
  and   are integers such that  ,

By setting   to 1 and letting   run from 2 to infinity, the spectral lines known as the Lyman series converging to 91nm are obtained, in the same manner:

    Name Converge toward
1   Lyman series 91.13 nm
2   Balmer series 364.51 nm
3   Paschen series 820.14 nm
4   Brackett series 1458.03 nm
5   Pfund series 2278.17 nm
6   Humphreys series 3280.56 nm

The Lyman series is in the ultraviolet while the Balmer series is in the visible and the Paschen, Brackett, Pfund, and Humphreys series are in the infrared.

Quantum mechanics edit

The same separation of variables technique can be applied to the three-dimensional case to give the energy eigenfunctions:

 
 

with

 

Other edit

Molecules edit

  1. ^ Levine, Ira. N. (1978). "Physical Chemistry" McGraw Hill: University of Brooklyn
  2. ^ Arrhenius activation energy - IUPAC Goldbook definition