Interfacial thermodynamics and kinetics

随着工程关注的尺寸减小到更小的尺度，界面的影响变得更加重要。具有弯曲流体界面的多相系统，包括气泡、液滴、乳状液、泡沫和多孔介质，存在于许多工业和现代科学中。当前对微米和纳米尺度技术以及表面力显微镜等新实验技术的兴趣已经导致发现了尚未用热力学充分探索的新现象。热力学是研究从控制能量和熵的物理定律中产生的数学关系的学科。虽然物理学家对多相系统中的弯曲流体界面效应感兴趣已有100多年的历史，但最具物理正确性的工作是针对相对简单的系统进行的，这些系统包含很少的组分，具有理想的相和简单的几何形状，并且缺乏其他实际的复杂性。拟议研究的目标是：i）为广泛的工业和科学上重要的多组分系统提供平衡热力学，ii）扩展统计速率理论，一种量子统计非平衡热力学理论，以预测非理想多组分系统的蒸发速率。

As dimensions of engineering interest are reduced to smaller scales, the effects of interfaces become more important. Multiphase systems with curved fluid interfaces including bubbles, drops, emulsions, foams and porous media occur in many industries and modern science. Current interest in micro- and nano-scale technologies and new experimental techniques such as surface force microscopy have led to discovery of new phenomena that have yet to be fully explored with thermodynamics. Thermodynamics is the study of mathematical relationships arising from physical laws governing energy and entropy. While thermodynamicists have been interested in curved-fluid-interface effects in multiphase systems for more than 100 years, the most thermodynamically correct work has been done for relatively uncomplicated systems containing few components, having ideal phases and uncomplicated geometries, and lacking other practical complexities. The objectives of the proposed research are to: i) provide equilibrium thermodynamics for a wide range of industrially and scientifically important multi-component systems, and ii) to expand Statistical Rate Theory, a quantum statistical nonequilibrium thermodynamics theory, to predict evaporation rates in nonideal multi-component systems.