section_path: Potentials
section_name: Potentials
paragraph_text: Potentials
  
  Thermodynamic potentials are different quantitative measures of the stored energy in a system. Potentials are used to measure the energy changes in systems as they evolve from an initial state to a final state. The potential used depends on the constraints of the system, such as constant temperature or pressure. For example, the Helmholtz and Gibbs energies are the energies available in a system to do useful work when the temperature and volume or the pressure and temperature are fixed, respectively. Thermodynamic potentials cannot be measured in laboratories, but can be computed using molecular thermodynamics.
  
  The five most well known potentials are:
  
  where T {\displaystyle T} is the temperature, S {\displaystyle S} the entropy, p {\displaystyle p} the pressure, V {\displaystyle V} the volume, μ {\displaystyle \mu } the chemical potential, N {\displaystyle N} the number of particles in the system, and i {\displaystyle i} is the count of particles types in the system.
  
  Thermodynamic potentials can be derived from the energy balance equation applied to a thermodynamic system. Other thermodynamic potentials can also be obtained through Legendre transformation.