Paper 4, Section II, E
The Dieterici equation of state of a gas is
where is the pressure, is the volume divided by the number of particles, is the temperature, and is the Boltzmann constant. Provide a physical interpretation for the constants and .
Briefly explain how the Dieterici equation captures the liquid-gas phase transition. What is the maximum temperature at which such a phase transition can occur?
The Gibbs free energy is given by
where is the energy and is the entropy. Explain why the Gibbs free energy is proportional to the number of particles in the system.
On either side of a first-order phase transition the Gibbs free energies are equal. Use this fact to derive the Clausius-Clapeyron equation for a line along which there is a first-order liquid-gas phase transition,
where is the latent heat which you should define.
Assume that the volume of liquid is negligible compared to the volume of gas and that the latent heat is constant. Further assume that the gas can be well approximated by the ideal gas law. Solve to obtain an equation for the phase-transition line in the plane.