Essential University Physics, 3e (Wolfson)

Chapter 19 The Second Law of Thermodynamics

19.1 Conceptual Questions
1) Is it possible to transfer heat from a hot reservoir to a cold reservoir?
A) No; this is forbidden by the second law of thermodynamics.
B) Yes; this will happen naturally.
C) Yes, but work will have to be done.
D) Theoretically yes, but it hasn't been accomplished yet.
Answer: B
Var: 1

2) Is it possible to transfer heat from a cold reservoir to a hot reservoir?

A) No; this is forbidden by the second law of thermodynamics.
B) Yes; this will happen naturally.
C) Yes, but work will have to be done.
D) Theoretically yes, but it hasn't been accomplished yet.
Answer: C
Var: 1

3) An engine manufacturer makes the claim that the engine they have developed will, on each
cycle, take 100 J of heat out of boiling water at 100C, do mechanical work of 80 J, and exhaust
20 J of heat at 10C. What, if anything, is wrong with this claim?
A) The heat exhausted must always be greater than the work done according to the second law of
thermodynamics.
B) This engine violates the first law of thermodynamics because 100 J + 20 J 80 J.
C) An engine would operate by taking in heat at the lower temperature and exhausting heat at the
higher temperature.
D) The efficiency of this engine is greater than the ideal Carnot cycle efficiency.
E) There is nothing wrong with this claim because 100 J = 20 J + 80 J.
Answer: D
Var: 1

4) The entropy of an isolated system must be conserved, so it never changes.

A) True
B) False
Answer: B
Var: 1

5) As a result of any natural process, the total entropy of any system plus that of its environment
A) never decreases.
B) sometimes decreases.
C) never increases.
D) always stays the same.
Answer: A
Var: 1

6) According to the second law of thermodynamics, the entropy of any system always increases.
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A) True
B) False
Answer: B
Var: 1

7) A hot piece of iron is thrown into the ocean and its temperature eventually stabilizes. Which of
the following statements concerning this process is correct? (There may be more than one correct
choice.)
A) The entropy lost by the iron is equal to the entropy gained by the ocean.
B) The entropy gained by the iron is equal to the entropy lost by the ocean.
C) The change in the entropy of the iron-ocean system is zero.
D) The ocean gains more entropy than the iron loses.
E) The ocean gains less entropy than the iron loses.
Answer: D
Var: 1

8) The second law of thermodynamics leads us to conclude that

A) the total energy of the universe is constant.
B) disorder in the universe is increasing with the passage of time.
C) it is theoretically impossible to convert work into heat with 100% efficiency.
D) the total energy in the universe is increasing with time.
E) the total energy in the universe is decreasing with time.
Answer: B
Var: 1

9) An ice cube at 0C is placed in a very large bathtub filled with water at 30C and allowed to
melt, causing no appreciable change in the temperature of the bath water. Which one of the
following statements is true?
A) The entropy gained by the ice cube is equal to the entropy lost by the water.
B) The entropy lost by the ice cube is equal to the entropy gained by the water.
C) The net entropy change of the system (ice plus water) is zero because no heat was added to
the system.
D) The entropy of the system (ice plus water) increases because the process is irreversible.
E) The entropy of the water does not change because its temperature did not change.
Answer: D
Var: 1

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19.2 Problems
1) A nuclear fission power plant has an actual efficiency of 39%. If
of power are
produced by the nuclear fission, how much electric power does the power plant output?
A) 0.098 MW
B) 9.8 MW
C) 35 MW
D) 0.35 MW
Answer: A
Var: 50+

2) An automobile engine takes in 4000 J of heat and performs 1100 J of mechanical work in each
cycle.
(a) Calculate the engine's efficiency.
(b) How much heat is "wasted" in each cycle?
Answer: (a) 27.5% (b) 2900 J
Var: 1

3) The graph in the figure shows a cycle for a heat engine for which
thermal efficiency of this engine?

A) 29 %
B) 57 %
C) 14 %
D) 23 %
Answer: A
Var: 50+

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=35 J. What is the

4) A certain engine extracts 1300 J of heat from a hot temperature reservoir and discharges 700 J
of heat to a cold temperature reservoir. What is the efficiency of this engine?
A) 46%
B) 54%
C) 86%
D) 27%
E) 13%
Answer: A
Var: 1

5) A heat engine with an efficiency of 30.0% performs 2500 J of work. How much heat is
discharged to the lower temperature reservoir?
A) 5830 J
B) 8330 J
C) 750 J
D) 1350 J
E) 7080 J
Answer: A
Var: 1

6) A real (non-Carnot) heat engine, operating between heat reservoirs at temperatures of

and
performs 4.3 kJ of net work and rejects
of heat in a single cycle. The thermal
efficiency of this heat engine is closest to
A) 0.35
B) 0.31
C) 0.28
D) 0.38
E) 0.42
Answer: A
Var: 50+

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7) A heat engine takes 2.0 moles of an ideal gas through the reversible cycle abca, on the pV
diagram shown in the figure. The path bc is an isothermal process. The temperature at c is 820 K,
and the volumes at a and c are 0.010 m3 and 0.16 m3, respectively. The molar heat capacity at
constant volume, of the gas, is 37 J/molK, and the ideal gas constant is R = 8.314 J/(molK). The
thermal efficiency of the engine is closest to

A) 0.26.
B) 0.026.
C) 0.33.
D) 0.40.
E) 0.53.
Answer: A
Var: 1

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8) A heat engine performs the reversible cycle abca with 9.0 moles of an ideal gas, as shown in
the figure. Path ca is an adiabatic process. The temperatures at points a and b are 300 K and 500
K, respectively. The volume at point c is 0.20 m3. The adiabatic constant of the gas is 1.60. The
thermal efficiency of this engine is closest to

A) 0.070.
B) 0.10.
C) 0.13.
D) 0.16.
E) 0.19.
Answer: C
Var: 1

9) A refrigerator has a coefficient of performance equal to 4.2. How much work must be done on
the refrigerator in order to remove 250 J of heat from the interior?
A) 60 J
B) 120 J
C) 250 J
D) 480 J
E) 1050 J
Answer: A
Var: 1

10) A refrigerator removes heat from the freezing compartment at the rate of 20 kJ and ejects 24
kJ into a room per cycle. How much work is required in each cycle?
A) 4 kJ
B) 20 kJ
C) 22 kJ
D) 24 kJ
E) 44 kJ
Answer: A
Var: 1

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11) During each cycle of operation, a refrigerator absorbs 230 J of heat from the freezer and
expels 356 J of heat to the room. How much work input is required in each cycle?
A) 712 J
B) 586 J
C) 460 J
D) 310 J
E) 126 J
Answer: E
Var: 1

12) An ideal reversible refrigerator keeps its inside compartment at 9.0C. What is the high
temperature, Th, needed to give this refrigerator a coefficient of performance of 3.7?
A) 85C
B) 1052C
C) 11C
D) 42C
Answer: A
Var: 50+

13) A refrigerator has a coefficient of performance of 1.15, and it extracts 7.95 J of heat from the
cold reservoir during each cycle.
(a) How much work is done on the gas in each cycle?
(b) How much heat is exhausted into the hot reservoir in each cycle?
Answer: (a) 6.91 J (b) 14.9 J
Var: 1

14) An air conditioner with a coefficient of performance of 3.5 uses 30 kW of power. How much
power is it discharging to the outdoors?
A) 30 kW
B) 75 kW
C) 105 kW
D) 135 kW
E) 210 kW
Answer: D
Var: 1

15) A certain Carnot heat pump transfers energy from the outside of a house, where the
temperature is -15C, to the inside of a room where the temperature is 21C. If this heat pump
runs off of electricity, what is the minimum rate at which it uses electrical energy to deliver 150
W to the inside room?
Answer: 18 W
Var: 1

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16) A Carnot engine operates between a high temperature reservoir at

and a river with
water at
If it absorbs
of heat each cycle, how much work per cycle does it
perform?
A) 1318 J
B) 2382 J
C) 1449 J
D) 2251 J
Answer: A
Var: 50+

17) A Carnot engine operating between a reservoir of liquid mercury at its melting point (233 K)
and a colder reservoir extracts
of heat from the mercury and does
of work during
each cycle. What is the temperature of the colder reservoir?
A) 47 K
B) 186 K
C) 163 K
D) 207 K
Answer: A
Var: 50+

18) What is the maximum theoretical efficiency possible for a heat engine operating between a
reservoir in which ice and water coexist, and a reservoir in which water and steam coexist? The
pressure is constant at 1.0 atmosphere for both reservoirs.
A) 27%
B) 45%
C) 73%
D) 17%
Answer: A
Var: 1

19) A Carnot engine operates between reservoirs at 550K and 300K, discarding 1500 J of heat in
each cycle.
(a) What is the engine's efficiency?
(b) How much heat is supplied to the engine by the hot reservoir in each cycle?
Answer: (a) 45.5% (b) 2750 J
Var: 1

20) A Carnot cycle engine operates between a low temperature reservoir at 20C and a high
temperature reservoir at 800C. If the engine is required to output 20.0 kJ of work per cycle,
how much heat must the high temperature reservoir transfer to the engine during each cycle?
A) 27.5 kJ
B) 73.2 kJ
C) 39.2 kJ
D) 800 kJ
E) 20.5 kJ
Answer: A
Var: 1
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21) A perfect Carnot engine operates between the temperatures of 300K and 700K, drawing 60
kJ of heat from the 700K reservoir in each cycle. How much heat is dumped into the 300K
reservoir in each cycle?
A) 38 kJ
B) 34 kJ
C) 30 kJ
D) 26 kJ
E) 42 kJ
Answer: D
Var: 1

22) One of the most efficient engines built so far has the following characteristics:
combustion chamber temperature = 1900C
exhaust temperature = 430C
7.0 109 cal of fuel produces 1.4 1010 J of work in one hour, where 1 cal = 4.19 J
(a) What is the actual efficiency of this engine?
(b) What is the Carnot efficiency of the engine?
(c) What is the power output of this engine?
Answer: (a) 48% (b) 68% (c) 3.9 MW
Var: 1

23) A coal-fired plant generates 600 MW of electric power. The plant uses 4.8 106 kg of coal
each day. The heat produced by the combustion of coal is 3.3 107 J/kg. The steam that drives
the turbines is at a temperature of 300C, and the exhaust water is at 37C.
(a) What is the overall efficiency of the plant for generating electric power?
(b) What is the maximum efficiency that this plant could possibly have using the same
temperature extremes that it presently uses?
(c) How much thermal energy is exhausted each day by this plant?
Answer: (a) 33% (b) 46% (c) 1.1 1014 J
Var: 1

24) You want to design an ideal Carnot heat engine that wastes only 35.0% of the heat that goes
into it. The lowest cold-reservoir temperature available to you is +15.0C. If 150.0 J of work is
done per cycle, the heat input per cycle is closest to
A) 203 J
B) 231 J
C) 248 J
D) 429 J
E) 760 J
Answer: B
Var: 1

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25) An ideal Carnot engine operates between reservoirs having temperatures of 125C and
-20C. Each cycle the heat expelled by this engine is used to melt 30.0 g of ice at 0.00C. The
heat of fusion of water is 3.34 105 J/kg and the heat of vaporization of water is 2.25 106
J/kg.
(a) How much work does this engine do each cycle?
(b) How much heat per cycle does this engine absorb at the hot reservoir?
Answer: (a) 5740 J (b) 15,800 J
Var: 1

26) A Carnot refrigerator takes heat from water at 0C and rejects heat to a room at 12C.
Suppose that 92.0 grams of water at 0C are converted to ice at 0C by the refrigerator. Calculate
the mechanical energy that must be supplied to the refrigerator. The heat of fusion of water is
3.34 105 J/kg.
Answer: 1350 J
Var: 1

27) A Carnot refrigerator has a coefficient of performance of 2.5. The refrigerator consumes 50
W of power. How much heat is removed from the interior of the refrigerator in 1 hour?
A) 7.5 kJ
B) 450 kJ
C) 180 kJ
D) 720 kJ
E) 72 kJ
Answer: B
Var: 1

28) A Carnot air conditioner operates between an indoor temperature of 20C and an outdoor
temperature of 39C. How much energy does it need to remove 2000 J of heat from the interior
of the house?
A) 105 J
B) 130 J
C) 780 J
D) 520 J
E) 340 J
Answer: B
Var: 1

29) The compressor in a certain Carnot refrigerator performs 480 J of work to remove 150 J of
heat from the interior of the refrigerator. How much heat must the coils behind the refrigerator
discharge into the kitchen?
A) 110 J
B) 150 J
C) 330 J
D) 480 J
E) 630 J
Answer: E
Var: 1

30) The temperature inside a Carnot refrigerator placed in a kitchen at 22.0C is 2.0C. The heat
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extracted from the refrigerator is 89 MJ/h. What power is needed to operate this refrigerator?
A) 1.7 kW
B) 1.8 kW
C) 1.5 kW
D) 1.9 kW
E) 1.6 kW
Answer: B
Var: 1

31) A Carnot engine is operated as a heat pump to heat a room in the winter. The heat pump
delivers heat to the room at the rate of
per second and maintains the room at a temperature
of
when the outside temperature is
The power requirement for the heat pump
under these operating conditions is closest to
A) 7500 W.
B) 6000 W.
C) 17,000 W.
D) 13,000 W.
E) 9600 W.
Answer: A
Var: 50+

32) A system consists of two very large thermal reservoirs in contact with each other, one at
temperature 300C and the other at temperature 200C. When 600 J of heat transfers from the
300C reservoir to the 200C reservoir, what is the change in entropy of this system?
A) 0.221 J/K
B) 1.00 J/K
C) 5.00 J/K
D) -1.00 J/K
E) -2.31 J/K
Answer: A
Var: 1

33) A 2.0-kg block of aluminum at 50C is dropped into 5.0 kg of water at 20C and the
temperature is allowed to stabilize. What is the total change in entropy during this process,
assuming no heat is exchanged with the environment? The specific heat of aluminum is 910 J/
(kgK) and the specific heat of water is 4190 J/(kgK).
A) 8.2 J/K
B) 10 J/K
C) 3.3 10-2 J/K
D) 3.8 10-3 J/K
E) 2.4 10-3 J/K
Answer: A
Var: 1

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34) A 2.00 kg piece of lead at 40.0C is placed in a very large quantity of water at 10.0C, and
thermal equilibrium is eventually reached. Calculate the entropy change of the lead that occurs
during this process. The specific heat of lead is 130 J/(kgK).
A) -12.5 J/K
B) 86.0 J/K
C) -26.2 J/K
D) -86.0 J/K
E) -6.24 J/K
Answer: C
Var: 1

35) A 2.00 kg piece of lead at 40.0C is placed in a very large quantity of water at 10.0C, and
thermal equilibrium is eventually reached. Calculate the TOTAL change in entropy that occurs
during this process. The specific heat of lead is 130 J/(kgK).
A) 190 J/K
B) 100 J/K
C) 6.6 J/K
D) 6.2 J/K
E) 1.4 J/K
Answer: E
Var: 1

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36) What is the change in entropy of 10.0 moles of ideal monatomic gas that reversibly
undergoes the isothermal expansion shown in the figure? The ideal gas constant is R = 8.314 J/
(molK).

A) 221 J/K
B) 104 J/K
C) 63.1 J/K
D) 45.2 J/K
E) 90.8 J/K
Answer: B
Var: 1

37) A 610-g quantity of an ideal gas undergoes a reversible isothermal compression at a

temperature of
The compression reduces the volume of the gas from
initially, to
finally. The molecular mass of the gas is
and the ideal gas constant is R =
8.314 J/(molK). The entropy change for the gas is closest to
A) -99 J/K.
B) -81 J/K.
C) 99 J/K.
D) 81 J/K.
E) 0.00 J/K.
Answer: A
Var: 50+

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38) A 810-g quantity of ethanol, in the liquid state at its melting point of
is frozen at
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atmospheric pressure. The heat of fusion of ethanol is 1.04 10 J/kg, the molecular mass is
46.1 g/mol, and the ideal gas constant is R = 8.314 J/(molK). The change in the entropy of the
ethanol as it freezes is closest to
A) -540 J/K.
B) -490 J/K.
C) -600 J/K.
D) 490 J/K.
E) 540 J/K.
Answer: A
Var: 50+

39) A 2.00-kg block of ice at 0.00C is dropped into a very large lake at 25.0C and completely
melts. For water, the heat of fusion is 3.35 105 J/kg, the heat of vaporization is 2.25 105 J/kg,
and the specific heat is 4190 J/kgK. The net change in entropy of the system consisting of the
ice and the lake due to this melting process is closest to
A) 2.45 103 J/K.
B) 2.24 103 J/K.
C) 2.06 102 J/K.
D) -2.45 103 J/K.
E) -2.06 102 J/K.
Answer: C
Var: 1

40) At atmospheric pressure, 45 moles of liquid helium are vaporized at its boiling point of
The heat of vaporization of helium, at atmospheric pressure, is
and the
atomic weight of helium is
The change in the entropy of the helium, as it vaporizes,
is closest to
A) 890 J/K.
B) 14,000 J/K.
C) 18,000 J/K.
D) -9400 J/K.
E) -14,000 J/K.
Answer: A
Var: 1

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41) A brass rod, 75.0 cm long and having a cross-sectional area of 2.50 cm2, conducts heat from
a large furnace at 375C into a very large cold water bath at 10.0C without losing any heat at the
lateral surface of the rod. Steady state has been established, and the thermal conductivity of brass
is 109 W/mK. The rate at which the entropy of the system (furnace plus water) is changing is
closest to
A) 2.05 10-2 W/K.
B) 2.64 10-2 W/K.
C) 3.54 10-2 W/K.
D) 4.69 10-2 W/K.
E) 6.74 10-2 W/K.
Answer: B
Var: 1

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