In thermodynamics, chemical potential, also known as partial molar free energy, is a form of potential energy that can be absorbed or released during a chemical reaction. It may also change during a phase transition. The chemical potential of a species in the mixture can be defined as the slope of the free energy of the system with respect to a change in the number of moles of just that species. Thus, it is the partial derivative of the free energy with respect to the amount of the species, all other species' concentrations in the mixture remaining constant, and at constant temperature. When pressure is constant, chemical potential is the partial molar Gibbs free energy. At chemical equilibrium or in phase equilibrium the total sum of chemical potentials is zero, as the free energy is at a minimum.
In semiconductor physics, the chemical potential of a system of electrons is known as the Fermi level.
Read more about Chemical Potential: Overview, Thermodynamic Definitions, Applications, History, Electrochemical, Internal, External, and Total Chemical Potential, Chemical Potential of Electrons in Solids, In Particle Physics
Famous quotes containing the words chemical and/or potential:
“If Thought is capable of being classed with Electricity, or Will with chemical affinity, as a mode of motion, it seems necessary to fall at once under the second law of thermodynamics as one of the energies which most easily degrades itself, and, if not carefully guarded, returns bodily to the cheaper form called Heat. Of all possible theories, this is likely to prove the most fatal to Professors of History.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Humanity has passed through a long history of one-sidedness and of a social condition that has always contained the potential of destruction, despite its creative achievements in technology. The great project of our time must be to open the other eye: to see all-sidedly and wholly, to heal and transcend the cleavage between humanity and nature that came with early wisdom.”
—Murray Bookchin (b. 1941)