The heat content of a system is equal to the enthalpy only for a system that is at constant what?
1 Answer
Only for a system at constant pressure... By definition,
We can begin from the first law of thermodynamics
#DeltaU = q + w# ,where
#q# and#w# are the heat flow and work, respectively,
and the relation of the internal energy
#DeltaH = DeltaU + Delta(PV)# where
#P# and#V# are pressure and volume.
When one plugs in the expression for
#DeltaH = q + w + Delta(PV)#
The common convention is that the work is defined by
Furthermore, we apply the product rule from calculus (plus a bit extra) to see that
#DeltaH = q - cancel(PDeltaV + PDeltaV) + VDeltaP + DeltaPDeltaV#
As a result, the change in enthalpy is related to the heat flow as:
#color(blue)(DeltaH = q + VDeltaP + DeltaPDeltaV)#
Clearly, when the pressure is constant, we can see that
#DeltaH = q_P# ,
if both quantities are in
#color(blue)(nDeltabarH = q_P)#