conversation, from science to politics to economics to environmental issues.

The

production of energy is a major factor in the growth of national economies, especially

rapidly developing countries such as China, India, and Brazil. The chapter-opening

photograph highlights the efforts in Brazil to use their bountiful and fast-growing

sugarcane crop as a source of ethanol. A major part of the Brazilian economy has

depended on the use of ethanol instead of petroleum-based fuels in transportation

and industry.

With the exception of the energy from the Sun, most of the energy used in our daily

lives comes from chemical reactions. The combustion of gasoline, the production of

electricity from coal, the heating of homes by natural gas, and the use of batteries to power

electronic devices are all examples of how chemistry is used to produce energy. In

addition, chemical reactions provide the energy that sustains living systems. Plants, such as

the sugarcane in the chapter-opening photograph, use solar energy to carry out

photosynthesis, allowing them to grow. The plants in turn provide food from which we

humans derive the energy needed to move, maintain body temperature, and carry out all

other bodily functions. What exactly is energy, though, and what principles are involved in

its production, consumption, and transformation from one form to another?

In this chapter we begin to explore energy and its changes. We are motivated not

only by the impact of energy on so many aspects of our daily lives but also by the fact

that if we are to properly understand chemistry, we must understand the energy

changes that accompany chemical reactions.

The study of energy and its transformations is known as thermodynamics(Greek:

thrme-, heat;dynamis,power). This area of study began during the Industrial

Revolution in order to develop the relationships among heat, work, and fuels in steam

engines. In this chapter we will examine the relationships between chemical reactions and

energy changes that involve heat. This portion of thermodynamics is called

thermochemistry. We will discuss additional aspects of thermodynamics in Chapter 19.

THE NATURE OF ENERGY

The concept of matter has always been easy to grasp because matter can be seen and

touched. By contrast, although the concept of energy is a familiar one, it is challenging

to deal with in a precise way.Energyis commonly defined as the capacity to do work or

transfer heat.This definition requires us to understand the concepts of work and heat.

Workisthe energy used to cause an object to move against a force,andheatisthe energy

used to cause the temperature of an object to increase(FIGURE 5.1). Lets begin our

study of thermochemistry by examining the ways in which matter can possess energy

and how that energy can be transferred from one piece of matter to another

Kinetic Energy and Potential Energy

Objects, whether they are baseballs or molecules, can possess kinetic energy, the energy

ofmotion. The magnitude of the kinetic energy,Ek

, of an object depends on its mass,m,

and speed,v:

[5.1]

We see that the kinetic energy of an object increases as its speed increases. For example,

a car moving at 55 miles per hour (mph) has greater kinetic energy than it does at

25 mph. For a given speed the kinetic energy increases with increasing mass. Thus, a

large truck traveling at 55 mph has greater kinetic energy than a small sedan traveling at

the same speed because the truck has the greater mass. In chemistry, we are interested in

the kinetic energy of atoms and molecules. Although too small to be seen, these particles

have mass and are in motion and, therefore, possess kinetic energy.

All other kinds of energythe energy stored in a stretched spring, in a weight held

above your head, or in a chemical bond, for exampleare potential energy. An object

haspotential energyby virtue of its position relative to other objects. Potential energy

is, in essence, the stored energy that arises from the attractions and repulsions an

object experiences in relation to other objects.

We are all familiar with instances in which potential energy is converted into kinetic

energy. For example, think of a cyclist poised at the top of a hill

( FIGURE 5.2). Because of the attractive force of gravity, the potential
energy of the cyclist and her bicycle

is greater at the top of the hill than at the bottom. As a result, the bicycle easily moves

down the hill with increasing speed. As it does so, the potential energy initially stored in

it is converted into kinetic energy. The potential energy decreases as the bicycle rolls

down the hill, but its kinetic energy increases as the speed increases (Equation 5.1).

We will soon see that this interconversion of energy, with one form decreasing while

the other increases, is the first cornerstone of thermodynamics.

Gravitational forces play a negligible role in the ways that atoms and molecules interact with one
another. Forces that arise from electrical charges are more important when dealing with atoms and
molecules. One of the most important forms of potential energy in chemistry is electrostatic
potential energy, Eel,which arises from the interactions between charged particles. This energy is
proportional to the electrical charges on the two interacting objects,Q1andQ2 , and inversely
proportional to the distance, d,separating them:

[5.2]

Here is simply a constant of proportionality, . [C is the coulomb, aunit of electrical charge (Section
2.2), and J is the joule, a unit of energy we will discuss soon.] At the molecular level, the electrical
charges Q1andQ2are typically on theorder of magnitude of the charge of the electron .Equation 5.2
shows that the electrostatic potential energy goes to zero as dbecomesinfinite; in other words, the
zero of electrostatic potential energy is defined as infiniteseparation of the charged particles.
FIGURE 5.3illustrates how Eel behaves for