Abstract:

On Apr. 16-17, 2015, the “Seminar on Physical Chemistry Teaching” sponsored by Higher Education Press was held in Qingdao, Shandong. During this seminar, some important problems and disputes including the definitions of spontaneous change and reversible process, the relationship between reversibility and equilibrium, the relationship between spontaneity and irreversibility, entropy of surroundings and universe entropy, thermodynamic definition of surroundings, universe entropy criterion, reaction direction and reaction limit were discussed. Some deep insights of definitions and settlements of disputes were made. This paper is a summary of this seminar, which is meaningful and helpful for both the textbook authors and the teachers of physical chemistry.

Key words: Physical chemistry, Teaching, Seminar, Summary