Fifth LACCEI International Latin American and Caribbean Conference for Engineering and Technology (LACCEI’2007) “Developing Entrepreneurial Engineers for the Sustainable Growth of Latin America and the Caribbean: Education, Innovation, Technology and Practice” 29 May – 1 June 2007, Tampico, México. Tampico, México May 29-June 1, 2007 5 th Latin American and Caribbean Conference for Engineering and Technology 2C.2- 1 Thermodynamics of Irreversible Processes and the Teaching of Thermodynamics in Chemical Engineering Edison Bittencourt Univesidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brasil, e_bittencourt@uol.com.br ABSTRACT In this paper the some aspects of the teaching of Irreversible Thermodynamics are discussed, emphasizing relevant concepts needed by the engineering student, and future professional. The irreversible nature of real processes is presented to the student in the introductory level, in place of the more traditional disciplines concentrated on Classical Thermodynamics, which describes systems undergoing reversible processes, and which associates with the tendency of disappearance of structures. Impacts of irreversibility are depletion of natural resources and ecological damage, as we face today. Irreversible, open, non-linear systems are presented as of great interest to the Chemical Engineer. Coherent, purposive, and irreversible biological systems are also considered. Irreversible thermodynamics is presented as an element for the unification of a wide range of disciplines subjected to a fragmentation of a somewhat bureaucratic nature. This integration, resulted from the enormous development of computers and its use in the study of nonlinear dynamics system with wide applications in various fields embracing engineering, biology, ecology, economics, and sociology, leading to familiarity with terms such as chaos, complexity, bifurcations, and attractors. Keywords: Thermodynamics, irreversibility, nonlinear systems, applications 1. INTRODUCTION Compared to classical thermodynamics nonequilibrium thermodynamics has been given far less attention than deserved in Chemical Engineering Curricula: in Carnot’s engine the source of energy and the sink were taken for granted. Indeed a great deal of science, technology, and money is required to project, construct, and keep the high temperature reservoir hot. Increasing concern has been at last expressed by society with respect to the heat and matter thrown in the lower temperature sink: the environment. Global warming is today an inconvenient reality. Economic and technological developments have been characterized by open and determined aggression to nature. We inherited the consequences of man’s disregarding irreversibility: i.e. a hole in the ozone layer. Global warming, nuclear waste deposited in the oceans. No attention was given to Wilhelm Ostwald’s statement: “Waste not free energy; treasure it and make the best use of it.” Meanwhile, in our curricula, emphasis was given to reversible processes in Thermodynamics, as to linearity, and continuity in mathematics. Economy is still dominated by mechanistic, closed models. Reversibility, and a mechanistic view of the universe remained as survivals (to borrow a term from sociology) in the academic world. As pointed out by Prigogine (Prigogine, 1967), “the majority of the phenomena studied in biology, meteorology, astrophysics, and other subjects are irreversible processes which take place outside the equilibrium state.” Classical Thermodynamics is a theory which describes systems undergoing reversible processes and is, however “particularly applicable to closed systems” (Katchalsky, and Curran, 1974) The emphasis given to classical reversible thermodynamics in chemical engineering, a branch of thermodynamics which, as pointed out by Glansdorf and Prigogine (Glansdorf and Prigogine, 1971) “once the second law is formulated, concentrates on the properties of system which have reached thermodynamic equilibrium,” limits the application (and teaching) of this science specially when dealing with the open, irreversible systems.