Since most chemical reactions are conducted in containers open to the armisphere, why is the energy transfer associated with a chemical reaction generally expressed as the change in enthalpy?
Is it because the enthalpy of reaction measures the change in energy of a chemical reaction and disregards the energy of the surroundings?
1 answer
What you say may be right but I believe a better answer is that chemical rxns carried out in an open container do so at constant pressure. The enthalpy, qp is delta H. Energy carried out at constant volume, (in a bomb), qv measured delta E.
1 answer