The course aims at providing the students of the 2nd year with the fundamental basis of the energy changes associated with chemical reactions and phase transformation. The main focus of the teaching module is on determining the physical and chemical conditions under which such transformations occur to obtain, with an optimal yield, the desired products or to produce energy either in the form of heat (combustion reactions) or in the form of electrical and mechanical energy. The initial part of the course will be devoted to a general introduction to thermodynamics, including the computation of the Gibbs free energy and the chemical potential of species. Subsequently, the study of chemical systems at equilibrium will be undertaken, with a particular concern to chemical reactions and multi-phase equilibrium.

The course will give the students the capability of carrying out the computation of heat and work connected with systems' evolution, by performing and analyzing simple energy balances. The students will be able to determine the equilibrium condition for an ideal system, both in the presence and absence of chemical reactions. In addition, they should be able to predict the behaviour of real systems and to estimate their departure from ideality. To this end, the students must be able to evaluate the fugacity and activity of chemical components. FInally, it is also of importance that the students acquire the capability of predicting the thermodynamic properties of pure substances and mixtures.

The students should have a sound general scientific basis with respect to basic Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics.

Thermodynamic system and state; equilibrium, transformations and processes, temperature, heat, work.
First law of thermodynamics. Internal energy, enthalpy, specific heats, energy balance. Phase change and thermal effects. Ideal gas.
Entropy and second law. Entropy balance. Evaluation of U, H, S for simple systems.
Helmholtz and Gibbs free energy. Maxwell relations. Spontaneous transformations and equilibrium. Third law.
Qualitative behaviour of pure substances. Phase transitions. Vapor pressure. Critical conditions. Equations of state.
Phase equilibrium for single component systems: Clapeyron equation.
Chemical equilibrium for ideal systems: dependance on temperature and pressure, Van't Hoff equation.
Real systems: fugacity, activity. Chemical equilibria in non ideal systems.
Multi-phase (heterogeneous) systems. Colligative properties of solutions. Phase rule and state diagrams.

Close examination of specific topics (chemical engineering students only)
Basic aspects of electrochemistry. Electrode potential, Nernst equation, reference states, activity of electrolytes.
Determination of thermodynamic properties, phase-diagram and chemical equilibria for non-ideal systems

I.N. Levine, Physical Chemistry, McGraw-Hill.
S.I. Sandler, Chemical and Engineering Thermodynamics, Wiley.

The final exam consists in a written test and an optional oral test. The written test lasts approximately two hours and has to be solved without the use of books and handouts. It includes numerical exercises and simple theoretical questions, in order to ascertain the ability to solve practical problems and the knowledge of the basic aspects of thermodynamics. After the written test the exam can be concluded (in this case the maximum grade is 27/30) or it can be continued with an additional oral exam, which aims at evaluating in depth the comprehension of the subject.