On the geometrical thermodynamics of chemical reactions

Abstract

The formal structure of geometrical thermodynamics is reviewed with particular emphasis on the geometry of equilibria submanifolds. On these submanifolds thermodynamic metrics are defined as the Hessian of thermodynamic potentials. Links between geometry and thermodynamics are explored for single and multiple component, closed and open systems. For multi-component closed and open systems the Gibbs free energy is employed as the thermodynamic potential to investigate the connection between geometry and thermodynamics. The Gibbs free energy is chosen for the analysis of multicomponent systems and, in particular, chemical reactions.