Fundamental Relation for Gas of Interacting Particles in a Heat Flow

There is a long-standing question of whether it is possible to extend the formalism of equilibrium thermodynamics to the case of nonequilibrium systems in steady-states. We have made such an extension for an ideal gas in a heat flow. Here, we investigated whether such a description exists for the system with interactions: the van der Waals gas in a heat flow. We introduced a steady-state fundamental relation and the parameters of state, each associated with a single way of changing energy. The first law of nonequilibrium thermodynamics follows from these parameters. The internal energy U for the nonequilibrium states has the same form as in equilibrium thermodynamics. For the van der Waals gas, [Formula: see text] is a function of only five parameters of state (irrespective of the number of parameters characterizing the boundary conditions): the effective entropy [Formula: see text] , volume V, number of particles N, and rescaled van der Waals parameters [Formula: see text] , [Formula: see text]. The state parameters, [Formula: see text] , [Formula: see text] , together with [Formula: see text] , determine the net heat exchange with the environment. The net heat differential does not have an integrating factor. As in equilibrium thermodynamics, the steady-state fundamental equation also leads to the thermodynamic Maxwell relations for measurable steady-state properties.