Possibilities of surface reaction coupling with transport phenomena

International audienceThe thermodynamic approach of nonequilibrium phenomena allows, through the construction of entropy production, appropriate fluxes generalized forces to be identified, and the possibility of coupling to be detected. For the interface phase the expression entropy production consists of two parts: one for irreversible phenomena in the surface (chemical reactions and transport); and the second for transport processes between volumic phases due to the discontinuity of intensive surface parameters. Accordingly in the linear range, the phenomenological relations establishing the thermodynamic coupling between fluxes and forces of the same tensorial order may cause couplings, forbidden in homogeneous medium, to occur. For instance the thermal force which is the temperature gradient vector in homogeneous medium is split at the surface into a surface gradient (vector) and temperature jumps (scalar); the latter,. thus, can be inserted into the flux-force relation of surface reaction. Various consequences resulting from this formal analysis are considered