Which of the following involve an increase in the entropy of the system?

2 Answers

• Guessing entropy is always a tough one in thermo, but here is mine and reasoning:

  a. melting of a solid - increase- a melted substance has more disorder and options than a solid, hence more entropy

  b) sublimation -increase - because system needs energy to go from a solid state to a gas state so there is more options of order

  c) freezing - NO INCREASE - freezing has more order to molecules and less options of arrangement then the liquid

  d) mixing- increase - mixing increases the "multiplicity" of the system, which is proportional to number of ways you can recreate this state.

  e) separation -NO INCREASE- because multiplicity is decreased and less options of possible molecule arrangement in a separation. More order is added to system

  f) boiling - increase- molecules go from a liquid to a gas. The gas molecules have more disorder and possible arrangements over a liquid

• sublimation, metling a solid, boiling en mixing. All these processes increase the number of ways the particles can be placed in the space, thus increasing entropy.