AN IDENTITY IN CHEMICAL THERMODYNAMICS

In this work we consider the equilibrium state of a multicomponent sys tem in which chemical reactions occur, and its sensitivity to the chan ge of any of the thermodynamic parameters influencing the equilibrium. A general expression is obtained for the sensitivity coefficient part ial-derivativen(i)/partial-derivativeY, where n(i) is the equilibrium amount of the ith chemical species in the system, and Y is a thermodyn amic parameter such as temperature, pressure, initial amount of a spec ies, chemical potential of a species, etc. We demonstrate that the sen sitivity coefficients are linear combinations of contributions origina ting from certain special reactions, called response reactions, which are defined in the paper.