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[a] While processes in isolated systems are never reversible, [3] cyclical processes can be reversible or irreversible. [4] Reversible processes are hypothetical or idealized but central to the second law of thermodynamics. [3] Melting or freezing of ice in water is an example of a realistic process that is nearly reversible.
An isentropic process is customarily defined as an idealized quasi-static reversible adiabatic process, of transfer of energy as work. Otherwise, for a constant-entropy process, if work is done irreversibly, heat transfer is necessary, so that the process is not adiabatic, and an accurate artificial control mechanism is necessary; such is ...
Reversible process (thermodynamics), a process or cycle such that the net change at each stage in the combined entropy of the system and its surroundings is zero; Reversible reaction, a chemical reaction for which the position of the chemical equilibrium is very sensitive to the imposed physical conditions; so the reaction can be made to run ...
For processes that include the transfer of matter, a further statement is needed. When two initially isolated systems are combined into a new system, then the total internal energy of the new system, U system , will be equal to the sum of the internal energies of the two initial systems, U 1 and U 2 : U s y s t e m = U 1 + U 2 . {\displaystyle ...
For any irreversible process, since entropy is a state function, we can always connect the initial and terminal states with an imaginary reversible process and integrating on that path to calculate the difference in entropy. Now reverse the reversible process and combine it with the said irreversible process.
where a reversible path is chosen from absolute zero to the final state, so that for an isothermal reversible process Δ S = Q r e v T {\displaystyle \Delta S={Q_{rev} \over T}} . In general, for any cyclic process the state points can be connected by reversible paths, so that
For reversible processes, an isentropic transformation is carried out by thermally "insulating" the system from its surroundings. Temperature is the thermodynamic conjugate variable to entropy, thus the conjugate process would be an isothermal process , in which the system is thermally "connected" to a constant-temperature heat bath.
Often, when analysing a dynamic thermodynamic process, the simplifying assumption is made that each intermediate state in the process is at equilibrium, producing thermodynamic processes which develop so slowly as to allow each intermediate step to be an equilibrium state and are said to be reversible processes.