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I'm looking for an example of a spontaneous process in which a system becomes less ordered and energy becomes less available to do work. what happens to the system’s entropy in this process?

Answer 1

Olivia Askew

Consider the conduction of heat. From one part to another of a solid conductor.

This is a spontaneous process which leads to higher disordered states than before.

Also it may be shown that during conduction, energy becomes unavailable for work.

Entropy of the system increases as it does for all spontaneous irreversible processes.

It may be further shown that, the energy that becomes unavailable for work is proportional to the entropy change.

Refer to : Heat and Thermodynamics by Zemansky and Dittman

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Answer 2

Benjamin Asiedu

An example of a spontaneous process in which a system becomes less ordered and energy becomes less available to do work is the mixing of two gases. In this process, the individual gas molecules occupy a larger volume and become more randomly distributed, resulting in a decrease in orderliness. The system's entropy increases in this process.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.