Ellingham and Van't Hoff diagrams: some considerations

摘要

The main subject of this article is to show the parallelism betwen the Ellingham and Van't Hoff diagrams. The first one is a graphic representation of the changes in the standard Gibbs free energy (DrGq) as a function of T and was introduced by Ellingham in 1944, in order to study metallurgic processes involving oxides and sulphides. On the other hand, the Van't Hoff diagram is a representation of the function ln K versus (1/T). The equivalence between both diagrams is easily demonstrated, making simple mathematical manipulations. In order to show the parallelism between both diagrams, they are presented briefly and two examples are discussed. The comparison of the both diagrams surely will be helpful to students and teachers in their learning and teaching activities, and will certainly enrich important aspects of chemical thermodynamics.