"Thermodynamics is a keystone of physical science, bridging the gap between fundamentals and applications. However, when comparing the content of traditional courses and texts in thermodynamics with what today's engineers do in practice, one notices a widening discrepancy. New and emerging technologies and product designs deal with subjects such as bio-membrane and gene engineering, micro-reactor chemistry and microcapsule drug delivery, micro-fluids and porous media, nanoparticles and nanostructures, supercritical-fluid ...
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"Thermodynamics is a keystone of physical science, bridging the gap between fundamentals and applications. However, when comparing the content of traditional courses and texts in thermodynamics with what today's engineers do in practice, one notices a widening discrepancy. New and emerging technologies and product designs deal with subjects such as bio-membrane and gene engineering, micro-reactor chemistry and microcapsule drug delivery, micro-fluids and porous media, nanoparticles and nanostructures, supercritical-fluid extraction, and strongly fluctuating phase-change materials. Engineers often must design processes for systems where "macroscopic" thermodynamics becomes insufficient. Mesoscopic thermodynamics can be defined as a semi-phenomenological approach to phenomena in systems where a length -- intermediate between the atomistic scale and the macroscopic scale -- emerges and where such a length explicitly affects the physical properties and phase behavior."--
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