Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics

Course Description

Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics is the conceptual spine of the degree: what energy is available, which direction a process will go, and how far. The statewide description covers the principles of classical and statistical thermodynamics and their application to systems of constant composition.

⚠⚠ This is not the thermodynamics a mechanical engineer takes. A power cycle deals with one substance changing phase; a chemical process deals with mixtures whose composition changes, and almost everything difficult in this subject follows from that. Expect fugacity, activity and departure functions — abstractions with no mechanical analogue, and the reason this course has the reputation it does.

Carried by four Florida public institutions.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Apply the first law to open and closed systems, and to flow processes with shaft work.
• Apply the second law, and use entropy to determine feasibility and lost work.
• Use equations of state — ideal gas, virial, cubic (van der Waals, Redlich-Kwong, Peng-Robinson) — and know when each is adequate.
• Compute departure functions and use generalised correlations to get property values for real fluids.
• Analyse power and refrigeration cycles in a process context.
• Determine thermodynamic properties from tables, charts and correlations, and estimate them where data are missing.

Optional Outcomes

• An introduction to solution thermodynamics and phase equilibrium, where the institution places it in the first term.
• Statistical thermodynamics, which the statewide description names explicitly.
• Thermodynamic analysis of separation and reaction processes.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Scope, definitions and the PVT behaviour of pure fluids.
• The first law for closed and open systems.
• Volumetric properties and equations of state.
• Heat effects; standard heats of reaction and formation.
• The second law; entropy and entropy balances.
• Thermodynamic properties of fluids; departure functions and residual properties.
• Power and refrigeration cycles; liquefaction.

Optional Topics

• Introduction to solution thermodynamics.
• Statistical thermodynamics.
• Exergy and availability analysis.

Resources & Tools

• Smith, Van Ness & Abbott, Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics — the standard, and the one most Florida programmes use.
• Koretsky and Sandler are the common alternatives.
• Steam tables and thermodynamic charts; MATLAB, Python or a spreadsheet for the cubic equations of state, which do not solve by hand pleasantly.

Career Pathways

Named on the Chemical Engineer career path. Thermodynamics is what decides whether a process is possible before anyone designs the equipment, and it is the analytical basis of separations, reactor design and energy integration. It is also the most heavily weighted subject on the chemical FE examination.

Special Information

⚠⚠ The statewide prerequisite says NONE

It does, and it is wrong in the only sense that matters: no Florida programme admits a student to this course without material and energy balances, and the course is unworkable without it. ⚠ Read the gate from your own catalogue and do not plan a term around the state record here.

UF carries it at four credits, and calls it something else

UF titles the course Process Thermodynamics and runs it at 4 credits against 3 at FAMU, FSU and USF. ⚠ The extra credit is real content, not accounting — it is roughly where the mixture and phase-equilibrium material begins to appear — so a transfer student arriving at UF with the 3-credit version is a credit short and may also be short the topic. Ask which institution’s thermodynamics sequence your degree audit expects.

Where is the second term?

Thermodynamics of mixtures — fugacity in solution, activity coefficients, phase and chemical equilibrium — is the other half of the subject, and Florida places it differently. UF numbers it ECH4123 Phase and Chemical Equilibria; USF numbers the same course ECH4123 and titles it Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics II. ⚠⚠ Neither FAMU nor FSU carries ECH4123, distributing the material through the separations and design sequence instead. Find out where your programme teaches phase equilibrium, because everything in separations assumes it.

⚠⚠ Only four Florida institutions teach this, and two of them are one college

Chemical engineering is awarded by four Florida public institutions in three cities: the University of Florida (110 bachelor’s degrees a year), the University of South Florida (73), Florida State (27) and Florida A&M (4). Florida State and Florida A&M share the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, a single joint college in Tallahassee, which is why their records for this prefix are identical down to the title.

⚠⚠ So a carrier count in this prefix overstates how many independent programmes exist. A course carried by “FAMU and FSU” is one programme’s course, not two institutions agreeing. Read the hedging on this page accordingly, and treat anything stated about content as a description of a small number of specific curricula rather than a Florida-wide norm.

⚠ Neither UCF nor FIU awards a chemical engineering degree — the two largest universities in the state by enrolment. See the Chemical Engineer career path for what that means if you live in Orlando or Miami.

Accreditation and licensure

All four Florida programmes are accredited by ABET’s Engineering Accreditation Commission, which is what employers screen on and what carries the four-year route to Professional Engineer licensure under s. 471.013(1)(a), Florida Statutes. ⚠ Accreditation attaches to a named programme at a named institution, not to a course list — verify the specific programme in ABET’s own search.

Most chemical engineers never license: process plants fall under the industrial exemption. ⚠ The Florida exceptions are environmental and water engineering consulting, where work is sealed for public clients. Sit the FE examination in your final year regardless — the chemical FE is written for the curriculum you have just finished and will never be easier.