Macroscopic Entropy of Non-Equilibrium Systems and Postulates of Extended Thermodynamics: Application to Transport Phenomena and Chemical Reactions in Nanoparticles

Entropy (Basel). 2018 Oct 18;20(10):802. doi: 10.3390/e20100802.

Abstract

In this work, we consider extended irreversible thermodynamics in assuming that the entropy density is a function of both common thermodynamic variables and their higher-order time derivatives. An expression for entropy production, and the linear phenomenological equations describing diffusion and chemical reactions, are found in the context of this approach. Solutions of the sets of linear equations with respect to fluxes and their higher-order time derivatives allow the coefficients of diffusion and reaction rate constants to be established as functions of size of the nanosystems in which these reactions occur. The Maxwell-Cattaneo and Jeffreys constitutive equations, as well as the higher-order constitutive equations, which describe the processes in reaction-diffusion systems, are obtained.

Keywords: diffusion and chemical reactions in nanosystems; extended irreversible thermodynamics; linear irreversible thermodynamics; nanosystems; non-classical transport phenomena; thermodynamic postulates.