In thermodynamics, irreversible thermodynamics is the energetic and entropic study of transport processes or, in general, of non-Carnot cycle type systems, those which are never said to approach the equilibrium state. [1] The Brussels school is sometimes referred to as the “Brussels school of irreversible thermodynamics.”
The subject of irreversible thermodynamics seems to trace to the work of Belgian chemist Ilya Prigogine (1945) and Sybren de Groot (1951). [2] The term “irreversible thermodynamics”, is rather self-contradictory, as thermodynamics itself derived out the concept of irreversibility when German physicist Rudolf Clausius introduced the concept of “non-compensated heat” (entropy change) as the measure of irreversibility. [3]
References
1. Forland, Katrine, Forland, Tormond, and Ratkje, Signe K. (1988). Irreversible Thermodynamics: Theory and Application. Wiley.
2. (a) Prigogine, Ilya. (1945). Study of the Thermodynamics of Irreversible Phenomenon (Etude Thermodynamics des Phenomenes Irreversibles). Presented to the science faculty at the Free University of Brussels (1945); Paris: Dunod, 1947.
(b) De Groot, Sybren R. (1951). Thermodynamics of Irreversible Processes. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co.
3. De Groot, Sybren R. and Maxur, Peter. (1961). Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics. New York: Dover.
Further reading
● Callen, Herbert. (1960). Thermodynamics: an Introduction to the Physical Theories of Equilibrium Thermostatics and Irreversible Thermodynamics. Wiley.
● Yao, Y.L. (1981). Irreversible Thermodynamics. Science Press.
