Second Law of Thermodynamics: Entropy

Learning objectives

Section Key Terms

Entropy

Recall from the chapter introduction that it is not even theoretically possible for engines to be 100 percent efficient. This phenomenon is explained by the second law of thermodynamics, which relies on a concept known as entropy. Entropy is a measure of the disorder of a system. Entropy also describes how much energy is not available to do work. The more disordered a system and higher the entropy, the less of a system's energy is available to do work.

Although all forms of energy can be used to do work, it is not possible to use the entire available energy for work. Consequently, not all energy transferred by heat can be converted into work, and some of it is lost in the form of waste heat—that is, heat that does not go toward doing work. The unavailability of energy is important in thermodynamics; in fact, the field originated from efforts to convert heat to work, as is done by engines.

The equation for the change in entropy, $\Delta S$, is

where Q is the heat that transfers energy during a process, and T is the absolute temperature at which the process takes place.

Q is positive for energy transferred into the system by heat and negative for energy transferred out of the system by heat. In SI, entropy is expressed in units of joules per kelvin (J/K). If temperature changes during the process, then it is usually a good approximation (for small changes in temperature) to take T to be the average temperature in order to avoid trickier math (calculus).

Second Law of Thermodynamics

Have you ever played the card game 52 pickup? If so, you have been on the receiving end of a practical joke and, in the process, learned a valuable lesson about the nature of the universe as described by the second law of thermodynamics. In the game of 52 pickup, the prankster tosses an entire deck of playing cards onto the floor, and you get to pick them up. In the process of picking up the cards, you may have noticed that the amount of work required to restore the cards to an orderly state in the deck is much greater than the amount of work required to toss the cards and create the disorder.

The second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy of a system either increases or remains constant in any spontaneous process; it never decreases. An important implication of this law is that heat transfers energy spontaneously from higher- to lower-temperature objects, but never spontaneously in the reverse direction. This is because entropy increases for heat transfer of energy from hot to cold (Figure_12_03_Drink). Because the change in entropy is Q/T, there is a larger change in $\Delta S$ at lower temperatures (smaller T). The decrease in entropy of the hot (larger T) object is therefore less than the increase in entropy of the cold (smaller T) object, producing an overall increase in entropy for the system.

Another way of thinking about this is that it is impossible for any process to have, as its sole result, heat transferring energy from a cooler to a hotter object. Heat cannot transfer energy spontaneously from colder to hotter, because the entropy of the overall system would decrease.

Suppose we mix equal masses of water that are originally at two different temperatures, say $\text{20}\text{.0 °C}$ and $\text{40}\text{.0 °C}$ . The result will be water at an intermediate temperature of $\text{30}\text{.0 °C}$ . Three outcomes have resulted: entropy has increased, some energy has become unavailable to do work, and the system has become less orderly. Let us think about each of these results.

First, why has entropy increased? Mixing the two bodies of water has the same effect as the heat transfer of energy from the higher-temperature substance to the lower-temperature substance. The mixing decreases the entropy of the hotter water but increases the entropy of the colder water by a greater amount, producing an overall increase in entropy.

Second, once the two masses of water are mixed, there is no more temperature difference left to drive energy transfer by heat and therefore to do work. The energy is still in the water, but it is now unavailable to do work.

Third, the mixture is less orderly, or to use another term, less structured. Rather than having two masses at different temperatures and with different distributions of molecular speeds, we now have a single mass with a broad distribution of molecular speeds, the average of which yields an intermediate temperature.

These three results—entropy, unavailability of energy, and disorder—not only are related but are, in fact, essentially equivalent. Heat transfer of energy from hot to cold is related to the tendency in nature for systems to become disordered and for less energy to be available for use as work.

Based on this law, what cannot happen? A cold object in contact with a hot one never spontaneously transfers energy by heat to the hot object, getting colder while the hot object gets hotter. Nor does a hot, stationary automobile ever spontaneously cool off and start moving.

Another example is the expansion of a puff of gas introduced into one corner of a vacuum chamber. The gas expands to fill the chamber, but it never regroups on its own in the corner. The random motion of the gas molecules could take them all back to the corner, but this is never observed to happen (Figure_12_03_Entropy).

We've explained that heat never transfers energy spontaneously from a colder to a hotter object. The key word here is spontaneously. If we do work on a system, it is possible to transfer energy by heat from a colder to hotter object. We'll learn more about this in the next section, covering refrigerators as one of the applications of the laws of thermodynamics.

Sometimes people misunderstand the second law of thermodynamics, thinking that based on this law, it is impossible for entropy to decrease at any particular location. But, it actually is possible for the entropy of one part of the universe to decrease, as long as the total change in entropy of the universe increases. In equation form, we can write this as

$\Delta S_{\text{tot}}=\Delta S_{\text{syst}}+\Delta S_{\text{envir}}>0\text{.}$

Based on this equation, we see that $\Delta S_{\text{syst}}$ can be negative as long as $\Delta S_{\text{envir}}$ is positive and greater in magnitude.

How is it possible for the entropy of a system to decrease? Energy transfer is necessary. If you pick up marbles that are scattered about the room and put them into a cup, your work has decreased the entropy of that system. If you gather iron ore from the ground and convert it into steel and build a bridge, your work has decreased the entropy of that system. Energy coming from the sun can decrease the entropy of local systems on Earth—that is, $\Delta S_{\text{syst}}$ is negative. But the overall entropy of the rest of the universe increases by a greater amount—that is, $\Delta S_{\text{envir}}$ is positive and greater in magnitude. In the case of the iron ore, although you made the system of the bridge and steel more structured, you did so at the expense of the universe. Altogether, the entropy of the universe is increased by the disorder created by digging up the ore and converting it to steel. Therefore,

and the second law of thermodynamics is not violated.

Every time a plant stores some solar energy in the form of chemical potential energy, or an updraft of warm air lifts a soaring bird, Earth experiences local decreases in entropy as it uses part of the energy transfer from the sun into deep space to do work. There is a large total increase in entropy resulting from this massive energy transfer. A small part of this energy transfer by heat is stored in structured systems on Earth, resulting in much smaller, local decreases in entropy.

Solving Problems Involving the Second Law of Thermodynamics

Entropy is related not only to the unavailability of energy to do work; it is also a measure of disorder. For example, in the case of a melting block of ice, a highly structured and orderly system of water molecules changes into a disorderly liquid, in which molecules have no fixed positions (Figure_12_03_IceGator). There is a large increase in entropy for this process, as we'll see in the following worked example.

Practice Problems

Check Your Understanding

Section Summary

• Entropy is a measure of a system's disorder: the greater the disorder, the larger the entropy.
• Entropy is also the reduced availability of energy to do work.
• The second law of thermodynamics states that, for any spontaneous process, the total entropy of a system either increases or remains constant; it never decreases.
• Heat transfers energy spontaneously from higher- to lower-temperature bodies, but never spontaneously in the reverse direction.

Key Equations

Concept Items

Critical Thinking

Test Prep Multiple Choice

Test Prep Short Answer

Test Prep Extended Response

Glossary

entropy

measurement of a system's disorder and how much energy is not available to do work in a system

second law of thermodynamics

states that the total entropy of a system either increases or remains constant in any spontaneous process; it never decreases