The element potential method is applied for solving gas/surface thermochemical equilibrium problems. This method was popularized in the STANJAN 1 and CEA 2, 3 chemical equilibrium solvers, and more recently discussed by Camberos. 4 A significant advantage of the element potential method is that the number of equations that must be solved is proportional to the number of chemical elements present in the system, not the number of species. Thus, consideration of a large number of chemical species does not lead to a larger system of equations. This differs from several other thermochemistry codes, such as ACE, 5 MAT, 6 and Mutation, 7 which are based on the equilibrium constant approach. The equilibrium constant method scales with the number of species present in the system, however the computational cost can be eased by linear equation reduction techniques. This paper discusses the details and implementation of the element potential method and applies it solve several gas/surface thermochemistry problems of interest.
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