The systems to which thermodynamics have been applied have become more and more complex. The analysis and understanding of these systems requires a knowledge and understanding of the methods of applying thermodynamics to multiphase, multicomponent systems. This book is an attempt to fill the need for a monograph in this area.

The concept for this book was developed during several years of teaching a one-year advanced graduate course in chemical thermodynamics at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Students who took the course were studying chemistry, chemical engineering, gas technology, or biochemistry. During those years we came to believe that the major difficulty that students have is not with the numerical solution of a problem; the difficulty is with the development of the pertinent relations in terms of experimentally determinable quantities. Moreover, during the initial writing of the book, it became evident that chemical thermodynamics was being applied in many new fields and to systems having more than two or three components. These new fields are so numerous that any attempt to illustrate the application of thermodynamics to each of them would make this book much too long. Therefore, the aim of the book is to develop in a general way the concepts and relations that are pertinent to the solution of many thermodynamic problems encountered in multiphase, multicomponent systems. The emphasis is on obtaining exact expressions in terms of experimentally determinable quantities. Simplifying assumptions can be made as necessary after the exact expression has been obtained.