Enthalpy Versus Internal Energy
The U term can be interpreted as the energy required to create the system, and the pV term as the energy that would be required to "make room" for the system if the pressure of the environment remained constant. When a system, for example, n moles of a gas of volume V at pressure p and temperature T, is created or brought to its present state from absolute zero, energy must be supplied equal to its internal energy U plus pV, where pV is the work done in pushing against the ambient (atmospheric) pressure.
In basic physics and statistical mechanics it may be more interesting to study the internal properties of the system and therefore the internal energy is used. In basic chemistry scientists are typically interested in experiments conducted at atmospheric pressure, and for reaction energy calculations they care about the total energy in such conditions, and therefore typically need to use H. Furthermore the enthalpy is the workhorse of engineering thermodynamics as we will see later.
Read more about this topic: Enthalpy
Famous quotes containing the words internal and/or energy:
“No real “vital” character in fiction is altogether a conscious construction of the author. On the contrary, it may be a sort of parasitic growth upon the author’s personality, developing by internal necessity as much as by external addition.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“The tendencies of the times favor the idea of self-government, and leave the individual, for all code, to the rewards and penalties of his own constitution, which work with more energy than we believe, whilst we depend on artificial restraints.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)