A serendipitous observation in a Chemical Engineering lab at Penn Engineering has led to a surprising discovery: a new class of nanostructured materials that can … Read More ›
That seems like it would violate the law of entropy by turning a high entropy state (water vapor mixed into the air) into a lower entropy state (water in liquid form), but I’m probably just missing something.
I don’t at all understand why the second law of thermodynamics is being invoked. Nonetheless, capillary condensation is already a well-studied phenomenon. As the scientific article itself notes, the innovation here over traditional capillary condensation would be the ability to easily remove the water once it’s condensed.
That seems like it would violate the law of entropy by turning a high entropy state (water vapor mixed into the air) into a lower entropy state (water in liquid form), but I’m probably just missing something.
I don’t at all understand why the second law of thermodynamics is being invoked. Nonetheless, capillary condensation is already a well-studied phenomenon. As the scientific article itself notes, the innovation here over traditional capillary condensation would be the ability to easily remove the water once it’s condensed.
The entropy of a little water mixed with air is higher. As with anything that mixes a little.