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The partial Gibbs energy and the Gibbs energy

The partial Gibbs energy, or the chemical potential, is the partial quantity of the Gibbs energy, which means that it is independent of the amount of substance. Generally speacking, the Gibbs energy can be described as a function temperature, pressure and compositions of components, and thus the chemical potential can be derived from such a mathematical formula. Sometimes, one might feel confused that there exist several different formula of chemical potential with respect to the Gibbs energy. In this post, two different fomulas are to be discussed, respectively.

In the following derivation, the temperature and pressure are assumed as constant.

For Gibbs energy with independent composition

In this context, the Gibbs energy is a function of the solute components, denoted as to , while the -th component is regared as the solvent.

,

or

,

where is the total amount of all the substances, is the mole Gibbs energy, is the amount of the -th component and is the mole fraction of the -th component.

The chemical potential of the -th component, is the partial quantity of the Gibbs energy and that is

In CALPHAD method and other physical models, the mole fraction or the composition is the most common state variable for the fraction of the components. And thus, we have a motivation to substitue the amount, i.e., into fraction, i.e., , where chain rule of derivatives should be adopted.

As

, we can obtain

Take the last part from the equation above and we have

Note One should keep in mind that we should not sustitue as , as there is no way to calculate the derivative with respect to fraction number.

Futhermore,

Put this result back into the original equation,

Simplify the equation above,

For Gibbs energy with dependent composition

In this context, the Gibbs energy is a function of the solute components, denoted as to , while the -th component is regared as the solvent.

or

with a constraint that

The chemical potential of the -th component, is the partial quantity of the Gibbs energy and that is

In the spirit of the CALPHAD method and other physical models, the mole fraction or the composition is the most common state variable for the fraction of the components. And thus, we have a motivation to substitue the amount, i.e., into fraction, i.e., , where chain rule of derivatives should be adopted.

As

with the previous constraint, and we can obtain

Note It is worthy of noticing that the superscript of the summation has been changed from to .

Take the last part from the equation above and we have

Note One should keep in mind that we should not sustitue as , as there is no way to calculate the derivative with respect to fraction number.

Futhermore,

Put this result back into the original equation,

Simplify the equation above,

Differnce between the two formula of the chemical potential

  • For Gibbs energy with independent composition

  • For Gibbs energy with dependent composition

Relation between the chemical potential and the diffusion potential

Diffusion potential is one of the most important variables in phase-field modeling. Mathematically, it should be defined as the the partial derivative of the mole Gibbs energy.

Note partial derivative of the mole Gibbs energy and the partial quantity of the Gibbs energy are two completely different things.

Considering that the mole Gibbs energy is discribed with those independent composition variables,

the diffusion potential of the -th component with respect to -th component is

Note I am writing this to tell that, diffusion potential, is state variable of the solute, which means that a solvent component always exist in this context.

The equation above is really convenient when you have a description of the mole Gibbs energy related to compositions of the solute components. However, CALPHAD technique has adopted the second strategy to demonstrate the relationship between the mole Gibbs energy and composition, which is

with a constraint that

Obviously, there no straight-forward way to compute the derivative of such a formula of the Gibbs energy, as a constraint has been imposed on the function.

Fortunately, we have another definition of the mole Gibbs energy,

Apply the rule of total derivative to the equation above

According to Gibbs-Duhem equation, we have

and thus

Supposing that the -th is the solvent component, the composition of the solvent can be substitued with those of the solutes,

because

Consequently, all the composition variables in the equation above become independent, and we know

according to the properties of the total derivative.