Success and Prospects in Thermodynamics

Accurate thermodynamic models are essential to any chemical engineering endeavor. In this presentation, Cummings reviews some of the more important developments in the history of thermodynamics; from Gibbs and van der Waals in the nineteenth century, to the statistical mechanicians of the twentieth century. He also predicts new challenges on the horizon for the next generation of engineers. These challenges range from the development of new nanoscale thermodynamic models to optimizing renewable energy sources on a large scale.