What does Hess's law allow you to do?

1 Answer
Truong-Son N.
Jun 11, 2015

It allows you to formulate various mechanisms to solve for thermodynamic quantities, so long as:

  • The individual steps can be looked up in thermodynamic tables
  • They're real reactions
  • They can't be represented by a manipulated combination of simpler reactions

It doesn't matter what you do to get to the end, but where you end up.

It's an example of the Thermodynamic Cycle, which takes advantage of the fact that Enthalpy, Entropy, and Gibbs' Free Energy are state functions. This important concept of a thermodynamic cycle and state functions, for example, is how we even have thermodynamic quantities for #DeltaS^o#, #DeltaH_(rxn)#, etc. defined in tables in the first place.

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